‘One Pass at a Time’: Gabby Gladieux’s Path to a Perfect 10 on Floor
TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— The regular season has come and gone for the Alabama gymnastics team, culminating in this Saturday’s competition at Michigan in Ann Arbor. One Crimson Tide gymnast enters that meet right on the cusp of perfect-10 territory.
Junior Gabby Gladieux is on a strong individual run recently. She has six consecutive scores of 9.950 or better on floor exercise. She isn’t necessarily sweating that she has been tantalizingly close to that perfect score.
“I think for me, it’s just taking it one pass at a time,” Gladieux said Tuesday. “It’s just a reflection of my training and just kinda doing what I do every day and transferring it to the competition floor. I can’t control what the judges say.”
Gladieux has not scored below a 9.9 on any floor routine this season.
Head coach Ashley Johnston is confident that Gladieux, who’s been with her since Johnston’s first season as the Crimson Tide coach, knows what she has to bring to the table to get that bump from the judges.
“I think Gabby knows exactly what it’s gonna take,” Johnston said on Tuesday. “We continue to seek that feedback… There’s just a slight little form thing that she’s gotta clean up. We work on it week by week, but what most people don’t know is how hard that tumbling pass is.”
In the final meet this season at Coleman Coliseum on March 7, Gladieux scored a 9.950 on the floor exercise against Florida. Her season high to date, with just the one regular season meet to go, is a 9.975 against LSU and Arkansas. That means she got a 10 from one judge scoring the routine, but the other gave a 9.95.
Through it all, she is just focused on executing and getting the job done, regardless of what that may bring from the judging panel.
“Just continuing to do my job is all that I can do,” she said
