BREAKING NEWS: Mizzou Gym announces HUUUUUUUge roster addition

Oct 7, 2024 | Uncategorized

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2022 NCAA Division I Women’s Gymnastics Championship - Raleigh Regional
Photo by Eakin Howard/Getty Images

I still cannot believe this is happening despite knowing about it for weeks.

I JUST CANNOT BELIEVE IT.

I’ve known this for WEEKS and I still can’t believe it.

On Sunday afternoon, the official team account put out a teaser. A figure in the darkness. Audio playing with the voices of gym commentators John Roethlisberger and Alicia Sacramone Quinn talking about being one of the best in the country on a particular event. Hmmmm…

By Sunday night, the gymternet started asking questions.

“IS THIS HELEN HU????????? PLEASE I NEED TO KNOW NOWWWWW.”

“ARE WE GETTING HELEN HU BACK?????? OH MY GOD.”

“NO WAY IS THIS HELEN HU OH MY GOD?!”

“WHAT WHAT WHAT PLEASE LET IT BE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE”

And so many more. In all caps. That harmless lil’ hype video had gone viral.

And then on Monday morning at 9am, as promised, the news arrived.

HELEN HU IS BACK.

If you aren’t interested in hearing how I came to find this out weeks ago, feel free to skip the next few paragraphs and to what this means, lineups, and all that stuff.

If you’re still with me, here goes.

Back in mid-August, Shannon Welker responded to an email I sent him with the statement, “We have one more surprise for Gym World. Stay tuned.” I know, I know, super detailed. So every time my twitter notifications went off for the past TWO months, I wondered, is THIS the news?!? Is it scheduling? Is it a recruiting coup? Is one of the major 2025ers joining the team early? The latter is kinda what my gym friends had decided upon, as scheduling, unless it’s something wild like welcoming in UCLA and we get to see Jordan Chiles, just doesn’t seem “Gym World-ly”, and as hard as I tried to get “HEZ to MIZ” happen, it just wasn’t picking up steam and now Hezly Rivera is going to be wearing Tiger stripes of another color. Awkward…

I came upon this top-secret information purely by coincidence as it was a case of someone (not me, actually) being in the right place at the right time. I was sitting at my desk at the J-School, minding my own business and working very diligently on Wednesday, September 25 around 8:30am, when a **ping** sounded in Microsoft Teams from a J-School professor, [redacted]. “Are you here? Go outside. Or look out your window? Mizzou Gym was just shooting their poster in the amphitheater!” it said. I didn’t see anything from the window and so I ran outside to the concrete structure outside of Reynolds Journalism Institute that’s not easily visible to passersby (quite sneaky in retrospect to shoot there)— but the team was gone already. Sadness.

But the story doesn’t end there, friends, because when [redacted] said she took some photos that she wouldn’t share with the public without permission from the team (such journalistic integrity at all times), I asked her to send them to me. I thought I was just receiving some fun team photos, and I was delighted. Oh, there’s all the newbies— Amy and Railey and Kaia and Olivia, et al. — everyone looks so cute. Amari’s hair looks fabulous, and ooh, Joci is wearing her hair straight. Normal stuff. But then I see it… Or rather, someone. A figure that I can’t place in the top row between Rayna and Kennedy. My reaction (and Nate’s when I sent it him) was very similar to that of the people who saw the teaser video on Sunday.

There’s no way.

Is it?

It just can’t be.

SHUT UP.

Who is that?

No way.

But she…

NO. F’ING. WAY.

Consider this my version of Charlie’s Always Sunny conspiracy bulletin board I sent to Nate Salsman.

So what does this mean?!?

I have so many questions. Questions I hope to get answers to soon enough. After graduating early as a RS-Junior and announcing her retirement from gymnastics on April 3, 2023, Helen Hu spent the last year traveling around the world visiting such places as South Korea, Finland, Italy, Vietnam, India, Ecuador, Central America, Thailand, Japan and more. When did she decide to un-retire? And did she train at all while she was away? A year-plus is a long time without gymnastics. I NEED to know details.

Per the MUTigers.com release, which was released alongside the twitter post, Hu said, “When weighing my options, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I have more to give, and that belief that I could do more,” Hu said. “I wanted to continue helping the program grow and be a part of this really special sport. It felt like I would be missing out on a special opportunity that people don’t get or can’t achieve. So, I felt like I owe it to myself, the sport and the team to come back for a year because I knew that I could.”

Hu Dat?

So, what are the Tigers getting in the return of Helen Hu? Besides one of the most gorgeous beam workers I’ve ever seen? Well, depending upon the level of training she’s kept up in the past year, an unbelievably consistent performer. The Chicago native first arrived in CoMo in 2020 and immediately found her way into the bars and beam lineups in every meet. And for more than a half-dozen meets, she competed on vault and floor as well. (We certainly don’t expect her to do that now.) By her rookie season’s end, Hu ranked 5th nationally on beam, having scored a 9.975 twice, to go along with four 9.95 scores and three 9.90 scores. Her lowest score that season? A 9.85. That’s just craziness. On bars she ended the season ranked 11th nationally after scoring a whopping six scores of 9.875 or higher, including two 9.95s and a 9.925. Here’s a 2020 routine in which she scored 9.95.

A preseason ACL tear in 2021 meant that Helen would spend the year rehabbing her knee, but she returned to competition super strong in 2022, competing in 12 meets and scoring a 9.90+ on beam seven times (including 4x 9.95 and a 9.9375 at Regional finals). After fighting some back issues, Hu also eventually rejoined the bars rotation about halfway through the season and notched four scores 9.875 or higher.

2023 was the big comeback year for the Original H^2 (sorry, Hannah Horton), as she posted a 9.90 or better on beam in 10 of 13 meets and matched her career high of 9.975 in a March quad meet, ending the season ranked 9th nationally. Below is a video of her 9.925 at NCAA Regionals.

She was just as successful on uneven bars, recording a near-perfect performance of 9.950 on the bars at the 2023 SEC Conference meet — she was ROBBED!! — which tied her career-high. Here’s the aforementioned 9.95 bars routine. Kathy Johnson Clarke was absolutely beside herself here.

And then, just when I thought we’d be watching her for at least another year or two, she went through Senior Day ceremonies and retired. Here’s what I wrote in my season-ending piece in 2023, after it was announced Hu’s gym career was ending:

I’m sad that we’ll never see another jaw-dropping Helen Hu beam routine though. Oh man, did she deserve a 10. Jerks.

So maybe another reason she’s back is to get that long lost 10? It took Sienna Schreiber five years to get hers, after all? Or because she knows just how good this team can be and she wants to be a part of it? College Gym News did just name Mizzou one of its seven teams that could surprise everyone this season, and that’s without this information. Or maybe she just missed it?

Where She Fits

Remember those beautiful way-too-early lineup previews I worked so hard on during the summer with the help of The Maneater’s Nate Salsman and CGN’s Claire Billman? Well, those digital pages can just be ripped up now, because there are new, even harder to predict— AND EXCITING!!! — line up decisions to be made, and OH BOY, I CANNOT WAIT. Nate and I convened within the hour to not only celebrate the team’s good fortune and try to figure out what this all means for the black & gold, but to marvel at the fact that no one else knew about this and we would be the ultimate secret keepers. These lineups, you guys… SO MANY OPTIONS… just chef’s kiss. (scores listed are career-highs)

BEAM

1. Addison Lawrence— 9.975 | 2. Helen Hu— 9.975 | 3. Lauren Macpherson— 9.925 | 4. Grace Anne Davis— 9.925 | 5. Amari Celestine— 9.925 | 6. Olivia Kelly— 9.95 equivalent

Others in consideration: Kennedy Griffin— 9.875 | Railey Jackson— 9.85 equivalent | Kaia Tanskanen | Hannah Horton— 9.825 | Rayna Light— 9.80 | Amy Wier | Lisa Szeibert— 9.75+ equivalent

BARS

1. Mara Titarsolej— 10.0 | 2. Helen Hu— 9.95 | 3. Jocelyn Moore— 9.925 | 4. Amari Celestine— 9.925 | 5. Lauren Macpherson— 9.925 | 6. Kyra Burns— 9.90

Others in consideration: Kaia Tanskanen | Rayna Light— 9.85 | Addison Lawrence— 9.85 | Abby Mueller— 9.85 | Rayna Light— 9.85 | Hannah Horton— 9.80 | Lisa Szeibert | Ayla Acevedo

What it Means

This is massive news. HUge news, if you will. If you are a listener of Majority Rules, our Rock M Olympic Sports show, you’d know I gave away an Easter egg with using the word HUUUUUGE repeatedly towards the end of Wednesday’s episode. Adding another insanely good gymnast like Helen Hu to the mix just makes this team that much deeper. It propels them higher into potential SEC rankings. It increases their chances at getting back to the National Championships in San Antonio, which is their ultimate goal this season. Teams that make it that far have superior depth and peak at the right time. In 2022, they finished just one spot out of making that elusive National Championship final and finished fifth. Helen was on that team. She remembers what it felt like. So this is it. Time to wake people up and make them pay attention to the Missouri Tigers. Let’s shock the gym world, shall we?

WELCOME BACK, HELEN!

NCAA Los Angeles Gymnastics Regional
Photo by Katharine Lotze/Getty Images
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 30: Helen Hu of the Missouri Tigers competes on balance beam during session two of round two of the NCAA Los Angeles Gymnastics Regional at UCLA Pauley Pavilion on March 30, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.

You can read the official team announcement here.

Nate and I will be recording a special episode of Majority Rules on Monday night to dissect the news. It’s so exciting.

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