LSU Gymnastics Team?s Plane Gets Stuck in Mud at BR Airport, Causes Delay in Flight to the Nationals

Louisiana State University’s gymnastics team is having a successful 2023 season. The No. 6 ranked team had a great run at the NCAA Denver Regional championship. After reaching the finals, the Tigers booked their place in the NCAA Championships with their final score of 197.750. While Louisiana and Michigan finished in second place, the sixth score from each rotation was used to break the tie. Ultimately, the LSU Tigers came out on top. However, the team ran into a hurdle even before reaching the NCAA Championships venue.

The NCAA semifinals will be held at Fort Worth in Texas, and the team has to travel by air. The No. 6 ranked team is one of eight teams who will participate in the semifinals scheduled to take place on Thursday at 2:00 pm. However, the bizarre technical issue delayed the team’s plans.

An unforeseen technical hurdle no one was prepared for

The semifinalists gathered at the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport to catch their flight to Texas on Tuesday. The gymnasts boarded the flight set to leave at 2:40 pm. The journey to Fort Worth would take about an hour to complete. The official LSU Twitter handle posted multiple pictures of the team, including college gymnastics star, Olivia Dunne, boarding the flight.

“Nationals, we?re comin’,”?tweeted the LSU page. However, the Breeze Airways flight carrying the team ran into a problem while preparing to take off. The plane hit a grassy stretch on the taxiway, and one of its landing gears got stuck. Hence, the team had to abandon their plan of a 3:40 pm arrival at Fort Worth.

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According to WBRZ 2, Breeze Airways arranged another flight for the team. The news outlet got hold of an LSU Athletics spokesperson on Tuesday who revealed that the team was preparing to catch another flight at around 5:15 pm and arrived at Fort Worth at 7:00 pm. Now that the team is in Texas, the Tigers’ fans will be excited to see star athletes like Olivia Dunne perform on the national stage.

The college gymnastics star’s prospects at the upcoming NCAA semifinals

Olivia Dunne had been out of action for a while due to a leg injury. However, after recovering from her stress injury, Dunne made a triumphant return to gymnastics at the end of February. In her first event back from injury, Dunne scored a 9.825 on bars helping LSU gain the victory over No. 9 ranked Alabama.

With just eight teams competing in the semifinals, the stakes are going to be high on Thursday. However, only time will tell if the highest-paid NIL student-athlete can perform at her best. While the LSU Tigers faced a bizarre hurdle on their journey to the semifinals, the gap between their arrival and the event didn’t create any other issues other than a delay.

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