Sophomore Kailin Chio is becoming the next great female athlete at LSU. The All-American from Nevada became the first gymnast this year to score two perfect 10s at the same meet, as she accomplished the feat last Friday against top-ranked Oklahoma.
Chio had a perfect score on beam and vault, but she believes she’s had better vaults this season.
“What’s funny about that, I think that was actually my worst vault I’ve done of the five others that I have stuck,” Chio said. “I’ve been wanting it for so long, but it’s funny it came on that that one instead all of the other ones.”
Chio has scored four perfect 10s through seven meets so far this season, and has five for her career.
“There is just not a whole lot you can say other than wow!” said head coach Jay Clark. “She is operating at such an efficient, consistent, extremely high level and seems to really rise to the occasion in moments when we need her to be.”
Chio was the SEC Freshman of the Year last year; and she’s having a sensational sophomore season, as she’s won 22 event titles, which is one shy of the 23 she had all of last year.
“I just take each meet as a reset,” Chio said on the ESPN broadcast after the Oklahoma meet. “Nothing in the meet prior matters anymore. Each meet is a reset of my mindset, just going in there and doing what I do every single day in the gym, and it just shows up.”
Haleigh Bryant is considered the greatest LSU gymnast of all time. In 2024, Bryant was named the winner of the prestigious Honda Sport Award, which is like winning the Heisman Trophy in football.
Bryant had 105 individual titles and Chio is on pace to surpass that total.
LSU failed to beat Oklahoma last Friday; but it was the Tigers highest road score of the season, and they are still ranked second in the country. LSU is a national title contender again this year, but Clark says they can’t rely on Chio to keep scoring 10s.
“What we can’t do is become so dependent on her doing it all of the time that starts to put pressure on her and we got plenty of athletes on our team that are capable of performing at that level and putting up big scores.”
LSU other top performers include Lexi Zeiss on vault. Ulrich Madison and Konnor McClain are great on uneven bars. Drayton Amari has been strong on balanced beam and Kaliya Lincoln has a higher average score on floor than Chio.
But Lincoln didn’t perform on the floor against Oklahoma because of an Achilles injury that LSU is taking a cautious approach on. And McClain missed an Oklahoma meet because an arm injury suffered during pre-meet warmups.
Clark said McClain is day-to-day.
Second-ranked LSU will host third-ranked Alabama Friday night and will also compete Sunday at the Raising Cane’s River Center against three other teams — Alabama, Arizona and North Carolina.