Oklahoma gymnastics: Maggie Nichols a finalist for prestigious AAI Award

Competition for the No. 1 ranked women’s Oklahoma gymnastics squad has come to a close for this season, but there is still postive news coming out of the widely heralded Sooner program.

OU senior Maggie Nichols is one of six finalists for the prestigious AAI Award, which recognizes the most outstanding senior female gymnast in the country.

Nichols has been a major part of the Sooner gymnastics program since coming to Oklahoma as a freshman in 2017. She won a gold medal at the 2015 Women’s World Championships and competed at the U.S. Olympic Trials before arriving at OU.

While she has been at OU, the Sooners have won two national championships (2017 and 2019), finished as a runner-up in the national championships in 2018, three consecutive regional titles and three straight Big 12 championships.

As a freshman in 2017, Nichols was the first gymnast in NCAA history to score a perfect 10 on the balance beam.

Nichols’ owns a long list of impressive individual accomplishments as a collegian. She is a six-time NCAA individual champion and 13-time NCAA All-American. Added to that are six Big 12 individual championships. In 2017, the Little Canada, Minnesota, native was the Big 12 Newcomer of the Year, and the following year she was Big 12 Gymnast of the Year.

She has the fourth highest all-around score (39.925) in NCAA history, which she achieved as a freshman. Nichols is just one of seven female gymnasts to post a score of at least 39.900 in the all-around competition and the only one to do it three different times.

The five other finalists for the 2020 AAI Award are Kennedi Edney of LSU, Taylor Houchin of Nebraska, Maddie Karr of Denver, Mollie Korth of Kentucky, UCLA’s Kyla Ross.

This is the ninth consecutive year that Oklahoma has had a finalist for the award.