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Olivia Dunne and the LSU Tigers will begin the 2025 NCAA Division I Women's Gymnastics season on the back foot after losing Haleigh Bryant to injury as they prepare to defend their status as national champions.
The development comes days just after Jay Clark warned that his group doesn't seem ready for the season, particularly criticizing the senior of the team at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Now he'll have to do without one of them after the All-American suffered an elbow injury and thus, will be out of commission for some time after damaging the Ulnar Collateral Ligament on December 16.
She had been at the LSY Gymnastics 101 event when she made an error on her vault and appeared to jam her elbow before she could land.
She then continued with the floor and balance beam before flagging the issue up the next day.
Bryant also fell on the beam too, in a worrying display of form ahead of the Tigers' ambitious season before the fifth-year will now have to sit time out as her body heals before she can hit the floor again.
Clark concerned by Tigers' fear
It's the second time in 2024 that Bryant has had to battle a race against time to make sure she's fit for the meets, after an earlier scare with her UCL in April 2024, and she would be a big blow to the Tigers after becoming their NCAA and Southeastern Conference all-around Champion.
Clark, meanwhile, isn't too concerned about the fact that she fell but more to do with the fact that the 23-year-old appeared afraid when she took to her routines in Baton Rouge a couple of Mondays ago.
"That doesn't happen," Clark said of Haleigh's errors. "I'm not concerned about what I call aberrations. I'm concerned that some of our depth looked scared."
The team have several days left to iron out their gremlins and to hit the ground running before they take on the Iowa State Cyclones on January 3, before they take on the Sprouts Farmers Market Collegiate Quad in Oklahoma City on January 11.