To answer my own question from last spring, no, Denver gymnastics will not fade into obscurity! They started off the 2026 season with two weeks of top finishes. Senior Cecilia Cooley beat the 2024 Olympic bronze medalist on floor (no…not that one, the Romanian)!

The Pioneers’ season started at home in Magness on January 11 with a win against Stanford 196.575 to 196.475. Stanford freshman Ana Barbosu formerly of the Romanian national team,  was awarded the bronze medal in the 2024 Olympics on floor after an inquiry from American Jordan Chiles was overturned due to a timing technicality. I bring this up only because DU’s Cooley beat her on this event in Barbosu’s NCAA debut by a full tenth, with a career high and near perfect 9.975. Excellent start to Denver’s season! Preseason polls predicted Stanford would beat Denver, but the Pios came out on top. Denver’s first ranking of the season came in at #12  (they weren’t even in the top 15 in preseason polls).

Denver’s hype men, Tom and Taylor are back this year better than ever, along with our very own in-house DJ (who played the lamest background music during Stanford’s beam lineup – kudos for giving them bad juju subliminally through music choice), made the afternoon in Magness really fun, even if the arena was only half full.

Denver gymnastics has seen a lot of turnover since last year and this author predicted a decline in scoring potential, but the 2026 team has shown they have depth and perfection in their roster. On vault, Denver has only one 10.0 start value vault with freshman Shyla Bhatia, and she stuck it in her first collegiate meet! Hopefully the rest of the lineup has some higher value vaults later this season. Denver scored over 49 points as a team on every event in their season opener. One thing Denver needs desperately to work on is stuck landings. This is an issue ever year for the Pios. They post videos on their socials of stick after stick in practice, but always struggle to put that on the competition floor. We’ve seen a few sticks, we want more!

Denver’s second meet of the season came on January 16, at Texas Women’s in a tri-meet that also included Arizona. Although Denver came out with a win over both teams, Denver’s team scores went down on every event from the first meet. The final team score of a 195.85 will likely push them out of the top 15 when the weekend is over. Denver had quite a few lineup changes from their first meet to the second, but has not had to count a fall yet, proving their roster has what it takes. While the lineup changes have shown depth in the roster, it will be interesting to see who become the lineup regulars and how much consistency the team can build up as the season progresses. Even though the second week wasn’t as spectacular as the first, there is still a long season ahead. Head coach Melissa Kutcher-Rinehart always changes her lineups week over week, keeping bloggers and gym-fans guessing, so no surprises there.

I see lots of potential in the 2026 Pioneer women, and am reinvigorated in this new season. Hopefully the team is proud of where they are at and bring even more excitement as the season progresses!