With Experience On Her Side, Leanne Wong Eyes NCAA National Team Title

09 Apr With Experience On Her Side, Leanne Wong Eyes NCAA National Team Title

Posted at 11:19h in 2025 NCAA Headquarters, News & Features by Nate Salsman 0 Comments

By Nate Salsman

Inside Gymnastics Intern

World Champion and Olympic alternate Leanne Wong had a whirlwind of a year in 2024. She competed collegiately for the University of Florida, leading them to a fourth place finish in the NCAA Championship final and picked up a National title on uneven bars. And the busy schedule didn’t stop there. With no time for a break, she jumped right back into elite competition on the road to the Paris Olympics, ultimately qualifying to the team as a traveling alternate for the second straight Olympics. Now, she’s fully immersed into her Senior season at Florida, with hopes of leading the squad to their first National title since 2015.

“Obviously we’d like to take the title home,” Wong said. “That would be really special, since the last national title was in 2015. It would be a really special moment for us to just come together and put all the routines together, and just use everything that we’ve built and trained and practiced for all season long – and really just me enjoying the final parts of my NCAA career.”

The Gators have not been short of momentum this year. At the SEC Championships, they posted a bar score of 49.85, the highest bar score of the year. The rotation included a perfect score from Wong and teammate Riley McCusker.

A switch in the order of the rotation paid off.

“I went third in that bar rotation, so it’s a little bit earlier than I normally would go, but we switched it up a little bit, and I’m so glad that it paid off,” Wong said. “I was able to celebrate even more than I normally would, because I’d already gone. So I was just super happy for the last three routines. Just, stick after stick, and we were just really building momentum off of each other, and really just going out there, doing our routines and just doing them how we practice, and really just having a lot of fun together. Having Riley go up on our last routine, we’re like, ‘Okay, how much better can this bar rotation get’ and when the 10s came up, I knew it was her first 10. I mean, just like the emotions, the whole team was going crazy and it was so exciting.”

The Road to Paris

With the introduction of NIL in college athletics, gymnasts no longer have to decide between competing in college and chasing their Olympic dream. Wong is one of those athletes that competed in both elite and NCAA gymnastics. However, unlike teammates Jordan Chiles and Sunisa Lee, Wong was just one of two athletes to compete in NCAA and elite in 2024 without a break from either. This was a decision that did not come easy for Wong.

“From the beginning of the year, I was debating if I wanted to stay in college gymnastics or take a year off and just focus on the Olympics,” Wong said. “So I kind of went back and forth with that a lot, but just reflecting on my previous years, I’ve been doing college gymnastics and then going straight into elite season. So I was really just balancing both college and elite gymnastics during season. Which made that season a lot harder, I would say, having Friday nights in the back of my mind, and also the Olympics. But I think I was able to manage it pretty well in the end, and I was just really proud of everything that I did accomplish that year, because I did have a lot of accomplishments that I should be really proud of.”

Wong had no shortage of accomplishments in the 2024 NCAA season. She completed her gym slam (earning a 10.0 in all four events), won a National title on uneven bars and finished second in the All-Around at the National Championships. In an Olympic year, all of the competitions leading up to the Games such as the U.S. Classic and U.S. Championships, take place earlier in the summer, giving Wong less time to prepare for elite events after the NCAA season finished in April.

“I was just really excited to go into the elite season,” Wong said. “I would say at times, I didn’t regret, but I was like, ‘did I make the right decision?’Because there are definitely some moments before Classic when I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m ready.’ I haven’t had enough time to really just focus on elite. But I just trusted the process, trusted the journey all the way to the end. And I would say a lot happened between Championships and Olympic Trials. I felt pretty tired, like throughout that whole season, into the Olympic Trials. I kind of talked about it being part of my testimony, because I would say, I strengthened my faith a lot in this past year. And just being so tired from collegiate season, I was like, ‘I literally don’t feel like I have enough energy to train to do anything.’ So I asked, ‘God, just please help me, give me the energy that I need to glorify your name and do everything that you have in store for me and what your plans are for me.”

Trusting the process is something that Wong reminds herself of regularly. She even made it the title of her book “My Journey: Trust the Process.” There was a moment in preparation for the Olympic Trials where Wong had to let God take control of her destiny.

“I literally just had a moment where I had to look into space and just say this prayer. And it was the craziest two weeks of training after that moment. I would train throughout the entire week, and would have as much energy on the last day of training as I did on the first day. And in that time was when I learned my new vault that I competed at Olympic Trials. That two weeks of training really put me in the right mindset. I literally just had the most free competition that I’ve ever had.”

Wong put in the work in the two weeks between the Xfinity U.S. Championships and the Olympic Trials, which included learning the challenging Cheng vault. The vault was performed by the entirety of the Olympic vault podium (Simone Biles, Rebeca Andrade and Jade Carey). Wong did not imagine herself competing the vault until right before Trials.

“Definitely in those two weeks, that’s when I decided it was ready to go,” Wong said. “I’ve been training this vault for years and years even before college, but it just never was ready to be put on competition surface. In those two weeks, I was like, ‘Oh my goodness.’ I’m actually doing a competition height. I think I could actually land it safely.”

A Different Experience

In 2021, Wong was selected for the Olympic team in Tokyo as a traveling alternate. Her experience was sidelined after her roommate Kara Eaker tested positive for Covid, forcing Wong into quarantine. She spent the entirety of her Olympic experience in a hotel room. In Paris, the experience was a full 180. Wong was able to train with the team throughout the Games while also sightseeing and being in the arena to cheer on Team USA. The highlight of the trip was being able to see the Olympic rings lit up inside the Eiffel Tower.

“It was just so pretty,” Wong said. “Every time I got to see it, I think I went, like, four times. So that was another blessing. We trained and got to do some sightseeing even after we were done training, we got to go do more sightseeing. It was really pretty, the Olympic rings were on it. So that’s not something that you would always get to see.”

Keeping Busy

As if being a competitive gymnast and a pre-med student was not enough. Wong also owns a business, the “Leanne Wong Bowtique” and has her own nonprofit the “Leanne Wong Foundation.” The idea for the Bowtique was born after Wong took a fashion interior design class in high school. She began creating bows for herself to wear at practice and in competitions. The business launched during winter break of her Freshman year of college. With the business booming, many younger gymnasts have been wearing Wong’s bows and her signature leotards she designs. Having her name on a leotard is something she dreamed about since wearing her favorite gymnasts leotards.

“It’s definitely like a dream come true, because I remember wearing Nastia [Liukin], Simone [Biles], Gabby Douglas and Laurie [Hernandez] and all their leos,” Wong said. “So I was like, one day, I want my name on my Leo, so I think it’s been really cool to see that. I have a team of 60 ambassadors, so I get to interact with them and their moms and just give them advice at times, and really just know that I am a role model for these gymnasts.”

Wong started the nonprofit after wanting to help those who do not have easy access to food. It was her signature initiative to talk with the Florida dining halls about donating food, that began the foundation.

“I wanted it to be somewhat food-related, because I’ve always realized, how much food gets wasted, and how much we take advantage of the food that we do have, and just knowing that so many countries and other people have no food. So some days when I was going to the dining hall, late at night, I would realize that they were just dumping away a lot of food. I talked to some of the dining hall staff and figured out what was going on. They were like, ‘yeah, like, we have this leftover food, we can donate it, but someone needs to come pick it up.’ So that’s kind of where I bridge that gap of like, okay, so we have this leftover food. How are we going to get it to somewhere where it could be used? That’s when I found Grace Marketplace, which is the local homeless shelter here in Gainesville. I’ve been delivering the food. I pack it up on the weekends and then get it delivered to the homeless shelters. Almost every week we have over 50 pounds of food, and probably up to 200 pounds, sometimes more or less.”

Looking Forward

For now Wong is focused on her final meet as an NCAA gymnast and in hopes of winning a team National title, but her college career has been filled with showstopping moments. From completing a gym slam, to earning a perfect 10.0 in her last routine at home, finding a highlight through all the moments is hard. Completing the gym slam in route to a win over LSU stands out.

“It was one of my favorite moments, because I knew that I was trying to get that 10 on floor for the longest time, and when I finally got it, it was just a super exciting moment,” Wong said. “Not only did I get my perfect 10 on floor, but I completed the gym slam and we won against LSU.”

Despite her collegiate career ending, this may not be the end of her gymnastics career. A return to the elite scene is not out of the picture.

“I think it’s in the back of my mind,” Wong said. “But you never know, I have a lot of school and other things going on in my life, so I will just take it day by day and see where it goes.”

Catch Wong and the rest of her Florida Gators in her final NCAA meet on April 18th at 4:30 p.m. ET.

Look for our Road to Fort Worth 2025 NCAA Championship Preview coming next week to InsideGym.com and stay tuned for our 2025 NCAA Commemorative Issue of Inside Gymnastics magazine. Available for preorder soon!

Look for Nate’s NCAA Notes each week and stay tuned to InsideGym.com and Inside Gymnastics magazine for spotlight features and interviews throughout the 2025 season!

Nate Salsman, Della Fowler, Megan Roth and Christy Sandmaier provide NCAA coverage for Inside Gymnastics.

Photos by Lloyd Smith for Inside Gymnastics magazine.