Mizzou gymnast makes history as team prepares for Illinois
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
A Mizzou gymnast has achieved a feat only one other student-athlete has achieved in SEC history.
The Southeastern Conference (SEC) announced Helen Hu was crowned SEC Specialist of the Week for a third straight time, becoming the first Mizzou gymnast in program history to win the award in three consecutive weeks. Hu also joins Florida's Trinity Thomas as the only gymnasts in conference history to claim that honor three straight times.
Hu was named SEC Specialist of the Week after recording a near-perfect 9.975 on beam at No. 3 LSU on Friday. Dating back to Mizzou's meet at No. 1 Oklahoma, The Chicago native has performed one 10.000 and two 9.975 beam routines in her last three appearances. Currently, she's also the only gymnast in the nation to post three scores of 9.975 or better in the same event this season. Despite stepping away from the sport last season to backpack in Europe and Asia, Hu has not missed a beat on beam.
"It is an honor to be recognized again among the many incredible athletes in this conference," Hu said in Tuesday's press release. "It's an even greater honor to be a part of making history with Mizzou gymnastics, a program I owe so much. I would not be here without the unique opportunity and support from my coaches, team, and the entire support staff."
"I see a new human with her. She's just enjoying the moment, right? I feel like we went from feeling like we had to do this years one through three or four, and now, I just sense in her like, 'hey, this is awesome like I get to do this' like she's excited for her opportunities," head coach Shannon Welker said at Tuesday's press conference. "This is a cool story, right? Not only for Mizzou Athletics, but the whole NCAA, right? Arguably the best beam worker in the country, so that's super cool that we've got her here on our team and we get to just, I love watching her compete. When I'm there I'm like, 'I'm just going to sit back and watch this' because it's cool, and I may never see somebody like that again on that event."
You can watch the full press conference with Coach Welker and Mizzou gymnast Elise Tisler in the video player above.
The No. 9-ranked Tigers (6-3) have reached the halfway point of their season ahead of its trip to Illinois. Currently, MU owns the nation's No. 6-ranked floor, No. 8-ranked bars, No. 11-ranked vault and No. 14-ranked beam squads through five meets. Welker's group has also toppled then-No. 6 Kentucky in its most impressive performance of the year, posting a season-best 197.200 score at the meet. At the beginning of the season, Welker mentioned that the early stages of the campaign are about finding the right combination of six student-athletes on each event, and he believes the team is close to finding its group of regular starters.
"If we could have around eight people per event, that we feel like we could get some experience and have the ability to kind of swap in and out of the lineup when needed, then that would be a good place to be in, and I think we're there. I feel like bars we've had eight people, and I think we're at about seven on the other events," Welker said. "I think at least eight gives us the ability to, if somebody's a little off or somebody's sick or whatever, we can still put up six solid routines right there. So, I think we're starting to narrow that down a little bit. I would think, within the next week or so, we should have kind of our group that we're trying to just maybe rotate in and out a little bit on there but looking good."
Welker has been impressed with how successfully his team has stuck its landings on beam over the last few weeks, and overall, has liked the collective effort on all four events. However, finding someone to take over the leadoff position on vault and sticking more landings on beam are two areas that Welker would like to see more growth.
"We've have some really good vaults. Again, I just feel like we're missing that one to kind of get us going right there, so I feel like that's an opportunity because really last weekend we went almost to 49.200 and we counted two vaults, actually three, that were at 9.800 or under, well two of those three, so that would have been a couple more tenths right there, right? We we could have been easily a 49.350, 49.400. So, I think that's an opportunity right there for us to get better right there," Welker said. "Then, I think if we can just take care of a couple of bar landings here and there, some ones that are pretty evident that we can stick, I think that's an opportunity for us but overall, really good stuff."
Mizzou will to seek to earn some Braggin' Rights over Illinois on Sunday, Feb. 9 at 1 p.m.
