The TikTok content alone has made this worth it
It’s finally here!
Sunday morning at 7:50 a.m., reigning NCAA floor champion and clincher of the 2024 NCAA women’s gymnastics championship Aleah Finnegan makes her Olympic debut in the third subdivision of 2024 Paris Olympic event finals qualifying round. Aleah will rotate with her Filipina counterparts Levi Jung-Ruivivar, an incoming Stanford freshman, and Emma Malabuyo, a current UCLA senior, and New Zealander Georgia-Rose Brown, and she’ll begin the meet on beam. The meet will be streamed live on Peacock and will be televised on E! Entertainment Television, though that feed may not show all of Aleah’s routines.
It’s been a long road for Aleah, one that’s seen incredible successes and unfortunate heartbreak. Her not getting selected to U.S. Olympic Trials in 2021 is still seen as one of Tom Forester’s more controversial moves, and that’s quite impressive considering his reputation among fans. She announced her retirement from elite gymnastics in 2021 and was done with that until the Gymnastics Association of the Philippines called. If you want to know more about that process of switching and coming back, check out the story I did on it 2 years ago.
Anybody who has ever met Aleah will tell you what I got to know two years ago: she is sweeter than you can put into words and is deserving of everything she’s worked for. This has been a journey full of some of the most tragic heartache possible and times when a normal person would’ve given up. It took strength to continue with the sport, it took strength to continue with elite, it took strength to make it through the nightmare that was the 2023 season to then try and qualify to get to Paris and it took strength to end 50 years of frustration and deliver a title.
It’ll take more strength to go out on the biggest stage on the of the planet, hit a beam routine with a standing Arabian (like her floor skill, but once and on a beam), nail a floor routine with new music, hit two vaults in an attempt to make the vault final, and hit a bars routine after doing all of that stuff. Aleah will be looking to qualify for the all-around finals and/or one or more of the event finals. In both cases, it’s important to remember the two-per-country rule: a country may only qualify two gymnasts per final in each of the five finals. The top 24 all-arounders after applying the two-per-country rule qualify for the all-around finals on August 1, and the top eight individuals on each event after applying the two-per-country rule qualify for each event’s respective event final. The vault final is August 3, the bars final is August 4, and the beam and floor finals are August 5. Aleah is not considered to be a top contender to make it to any of those finals, but it’s still possible. It’s going to be a magical morning for a deserving part of the LSU community, and I cannot wait to enjoy it.
Also, if you guys haven’t checked her TikTok (aleahfinn), it’s a treasure trove of her showing off everything she’s been doing in the Olympic village. There’s so much cool stuff that you might not see otherwise.