PARIS Olympic Games hopeful Aleah Finnegan starred in Louisiana State University’s close loss to the top-ranked Oklahoma State University Monday (Tuesday in Manila) during their home opener at the Pete Maravich Activity Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
A double gold medalist in the Vietnam Southeast Asian Games last year, Finnegan had a career-high 9.925 points on the uneven bars, ruled the floor exercise with 9.950 points and had a season-high all-around score of 39.500 points in the Tigers’ heartbreaking 197.45-197.600 loss to the Sooner.
A sophomore at LSU, Finnegan, who celebrated her 20th birthday last Jan. 4, bagged her second gold medal in the floor exercise for the No. 12-ranked Tigers, who are competing in the US NCAA Division 1 Southeastern Conference.
“Well, you never like to lose, but I’ll tell you this. The kids showed tremendous fight and heart today. We went against the best team in the country and the defending national champions and showed a lot of guts,” said LSU head coach Jay Clark in a story posted on the LSU athletic website.
The Tigers will be back in action again on Friday (Saturday in Manila) when they host Missouri in the PMAC.
Finnegan, who came off a foot injury in 2021 to star in the national women’s artistic gymnastic squad in the Vietnam SEA Games, has informed gymnastics chief Cynthia Carrion that she intends to qualify for the Paris Olympic Games next year.
Her Olympic qualifying bid will begin with the Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championship that is scheduled in the second quarter of 2023 at a venue that was to be decided in the Asian Gymnastics Union general assembly meeting that ended in Doha, Qatar last Monday.
