“Perfection,” as they call it. Claiming a perfect 10 in college gymnastics isn’t an effortless task. This season, this task has become tougher. A few gymnastics raconteurs have pointed fingers at the new rules in college gymnastics as the principal reason behind it. Well, on January 17, the first ten of this ongoing college gymnastics season came. Helen Hu from Mizzou Gymnastics claimed it on the balance beam. The gymnastics community couldn’t keep calm watching it. After all, the community had to wait a fortnight to watch it. Now, the list of achievers has a second name: Jordan Chiles. The Olympian grabbed the perfect score in a perfect moment in the duel. Let’s explore. 

After the much-hyped gymnastics battle in Sprouts Farmers Market Collegiate Quad, UCLA Bruins had to engage in another contest on the road. This time it was Maryland on January 18. The Bruins had been on the top tier of motivation after winning the Quad Meet last week. But to win the contest against Maryland on its home turf, a program needed something more than motivation. Luckily, the Bruins had that in Jordan Chiles. Last week, her floor exercise performance turned heads. This time, it turned the scoreboard. How? 

On Saturday night, Jordan had the responsibility to anchor the bar rotations in the duel with Maryland. Before her, three scores of her teammates failed to cross the 9.8 mark. The average couldn’t have been competitive in that way. So, the Olympian had to do something phenomenal to take the score to another level. She returned with a perfect 10, though. In her routine, Jordan scored a perfect 10 in the night. After her turn, Maryland had Natalie Martin in line to appear on the vault. 

In the vault routine, Martin claimed a whopping 9.875! Meanwhile, that number lifted UMD’s score to 48.975 after the first rotation. In the comparison, the Bruins scored 49.325. A slight edge! But the Bruins happily accepted that. Credit goes to Jordan Chiles’s superhuman effort. Her perfect ten made the difference between the two programs in the night. But what unique thing did she do in her uneven bars routine? 

On Saturday night, Jordan Chiles did something that even made the Bruins’ coach jump in joy. But what was special? In her uneven bars routine, Chiles moved from piked Tchakev to Pak effortlessly. In the end, she concluded her event, dismounting in Stuck full. The veteran coach, Janelle McDonald, noticed the entire routine while standing alongside the mat. Meanwhile, she continued to cheer Jordan up during the routine. And after the routine, she was the first one to hug the Olympian, congratulating her. The expectations have always been high from the Texas native. 

In 2023, Jordan Chiles completed the gymnastics season, claiming the NCAA uneven bars and floor exercise title. She had three perfect 10s that season in the uneven bars routine. Moreover, her expertise on the uneven bars played a key role in the clutch moments of the 2023 season. Now, in 2025, things are settling in that way only. And her coach in Bruins thinks that Jordan will continue to do what she did in 2023—stand up as an inspiration. 

Jordan Chiles is proving her value in the UCLA Bruins 

After a tumultuous Paris Olympics season, Jordan Chiles joined the UCLA Bruins to complete her graduation. In the meantime, she wanted to bring the known dimension back to college gymnastics. Before moving to the Bruins’ third match, the 23-year-old said, “I want to come back with something that people are going to enjoy. Artistic gymnastics is very well known for just the gymnastics part, and I wanted to be able to bring the art back into the sport.” However, for her coach, she is someone who stands tall in the moment and keeps the squad in a single thread. 

In an interaction, Bruins’ head coach, Janelle McDonald, claimed, “She’s [Jordan Chiles] only been back with us for a few weeks, but she has this ability to just elevate the room around her. She brings this energy and this passion to the table each and every day that inspires the people around her. And it’s really cool this year seeing that she’s taken all the experiences that she’s had and brought it in as a leadership role.” On Saturday night, Chiles played that role once again. She took responsibility and stamped a score that would motivate her teammates. Doesn’t that role suit her most? What do you think?