LSU Gymnastics Star Aleah Finnegan Earns Prestigious Accolade During Senior Year

Finnegan looks to carry her momentum into the postseason, earns coveted accolade.

Mar 7, 2025; Baton Rouge, LA, USA; LSU Tigers Aleah Finnegan performs on the balance beam during the meet against the Georgia Bulldogs at Maravich Center. Mandatory Credit: Stephen Lew-Imagn Images. / Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

BATON ROUGE – LSU Gymnastics senior Aleah Finnegan has been named a finalist for the prestigious 2025 AAI Award, which is awarded to the top senior gymnast in the nation by the American Athletic Inc.

Finnegan was chosen a finalist from a field of 59 nominees. She is joined by Oklahoma’s Jordan Bowers and Audrey Davis, Oregon State’s Jade Carey, Florida’s Leanne Wong and Utah’s Grace McCallum.

Voting will be conducted by NCAA women’s gymnastics head coaches throughout the nation to decide the winner of this year’s award, which will be presented at the NCAA Championships Banquet in Fort Worth, Texas.

LSU has seen four AAI Award Winners in school history, the most by any school since 2010 and the most in the Southeastern Conference. Haleigh Bryant claimed last year’s award to join an elite group of past honorees in Sarah Finnegan (2019), Ashleigh Gnat (2017) and Susan Jackson (2010).

A native of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, Finnegan has been a huge piece of success to the LSU Gymnastics program during her career over the last four years. A national champion, floor champion, Olympian – she symbolizes greatness in her sport.

Not only did she clinch the Tigers first ever national championship in 2024 on beam, but she was also named the 2024 NCAA Floor Champion, her first individual title on top of the team title. 

She claimed last year’s floor title with her score of 9.9625 in the NCAA Semifinals, becoming only the fourth gymnast in LSU history to win a floor championship. Finnegan’s floor score in the semifinals also matched the highest recorded by an LSU Gymnast at championships.

Finnegan was one of the top floor performers in the country all year long in 2024, taking home two All-America honors on the event in both the regular and postseason and three perfect scores on the event.

She has only continued to shine in her senior season in 2025.

This year, Finnegan has been consistent in every lineup for LSU, competing in the all-around in all but two meets this year.

She has put up season highs of 9.950 on vault and bars, 10.0 on beam, 9.975 on floor and 39.725 in the all-around. Nationally, she has ranked amongst the top 20 all-around gymnasts in the nation for nine out of 12 weeks of regular season competition.

The Missouri native also ranks amongst the top in the country on vault and beam.

Finnegan is an eight time All-American and All-SEC member who owns eight perfect scores in her career, with the most recent coming this season on beam.

She was the first Tiger this year to earn a perfect 10 and it was only the third perfect score on beam in the country. Her eight career perfect 10’s is the sixth most in LSU history, including the second most on floor.

Finnegan owns 36 titles in her career so far at LSU, with 13 of those coming in 2025. She owns 14 titles on floor, 10 on beam, six on vault, five in the all-around and one on bars. Her 14 floor titles ties for the seventh most in LSU history, which she currently shares with her sister, Sarah Finnegan.

On top of her collegiate success, Finnegan has managed to be a great representative of LSU across NCAA Gymnastics and the world stage. She became the first LSU Gymnast to represent the Tigers in the Olympics when she competed in the qualifying rounds of the 2024 Paris Olympics with Team Philippines. 

2025 AAI Award Finalists:
Jordan Bowers , Oklahoma
Jade Carey, Oregon State
Audrey Davis, Oklahoma
Aleah Finnegan, LSU
Grace McCallum, Utah
Leanne Wong, Florida

Finnegan’s Career Accolades:
2024 Paris Olympian (Team Philippine)
2024 NCAA National Champion (Team)
2024 NCAA Floor Champion
2024 NCAA All-American (FX)
2024 WCGA Regular Season All-American (FX)
2023 NCAA All-American (UB, FX, AA)
2023 WCGA Regular Season All-American (BB, FX, AA)
2023 All-SEC (FX)
8 Perfect 10’s (5 FX, 2 BB, 1 VT)

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