UNFAZED: How Kailin Chio Finds Peace Through Pressure

When Cassie Rice and Jill Preston, coaches at Gymcats Gymnastics in Henderson, Nevada, saw three-year-old Kailin Chio do an L-press, it was easy for them to see the potential.

When they saw a five-year-old Chio hit a Kip on bars, it was impossible for them to deny the gift. A future champion was in the making.

“We haven’t had many five year olds who can do that,” Rice said. “We were like, whoa.”

For Rice and Preston – role models to countless gymnasts across the country and even one Olympian – it’s anything but a surprise now, as 19-year-old Chio dominates collegiate gymnastics as LSU’s top all-arounder.

After winning SEC Freshman of the Year and an NCAA vault championship, Chio took home a staggering nine SEC Freshman of the Week honors a year ago, shattering the conference record. In 2026, she has already tallied four SEC Gymnast of the Weeks with four perfect scores through seven meets. 

Sophomore slump? More like sophomore sensation.

“We will sit there and watch replays of her (meets) and you’re just like, oh my god, she did it again,” Rice said. “It’s so amazing. We know what that whole process was like, the ups and the downs, the drilling of the different things that helped her get to that. It’s really fun.”

But how – in a sport where the margins are so thin and the pressure is so high – does Chio remain so consistent? That’s the question.

The answer? Well, it’s not the bright lights of her hometown Las Vegas that makes her comfortable on the biggest stages. And it’s not the heat of the desert that makes her cool under pressure. Her superpower is her mindset – calm in the midst of chaos and confident in the clutch.

“Trying not to think about it all day, I think, is really crucial,” Chio said. “If you try to think about it, or try to visualize it the night before, it can really mess with your head.”

Like any athlete, there are superstitions that help Chio achieve the perfect mindset. First is a birthday cake cake-pop from Starbucks before every meet. It’s her boost of sugar. Second is a Strawberry Acai Refresher, which she only drinks half of. Third is wearing the same earrings every time she touches the mat. Then come the mental cues. On vault, she will look three times to the side and one time in front before she takes off. On beam, she will always do a “nail check,” she says, with Haleigh Bryant and the same with Courtney Griffeth on floor.

Superstitions, though, are not what make Chio one of the greatest talents to ever grace the PMAC. Far from it. It’s her maturity that sets her apart and her mindset that holds her together, no matter the moment.

“Personally, I view each meet as new. Like I didn’t do anything the week before, whether or not I had the best meet of my life or I had a mistake. That’s gone,” Chio said. “I try to walk into each meet knowing that it’s a new day and a new opportunity.”

“Power circle” helps, too – a ritual the team does before every meet, home and away, which allows each gymnast to “mentally process the imagery of what they intend to do,” according to head coach Jay Clark. Power circle is not physical. They aren’t performing routines or practicing skills. It’s a walkthrough – with deliberate purpose, though – allowing the girls to visualize and get comfortable in the arena before competition. 

“I think I take power circle really seriously,” Chio said. “That is the one time we get to be in the arena before we actually step foot back in here. From then on, you have your mindset from power circle, and then after that, you get your mind off the meet for a little bit so you’re not thinking about it so much.”

Since the day she stepped on campus, Chio has made it look easy, but it hasn’t always been. In 2022, she suffered a pars fracture in her L3L4 during club competition. It was her first year she was supposed to go senior elite, which would’ve been a coveted milestone in her young career. Instead, she had to pull out of the competition two weeks before it was supposed to take place.

Chio had never suffered that big of an injury before and was put in a hard back brace for two months. It was uncharted waters, of sorts, for a gymnast who was given free time she never had before and circumstances she “didn’t know” how to deal with.

“That was really hard,” Chio said. “I was trying to push through it and it didn’t work in the end. It was a moment where I was trying to be happy with time off that I don’t ever get. But at the same time, I was like: this is not who I am. Having to overcome that was really crucial for me to come out on the other side like I have now.”

Good thing there’s another gymnast nearby who can relate – to the injuries, to the environment, and to the extraordinary success. That would be Haleigh Bryant, the most decorated gymnast in LSU history, who is currently in her first season as an assistant coach after graduating in 2025. Bryant and Chio were able to compete on the same team for one year. The similarities between them are undeniable. 

For starters, both were crowned SEC Freshman of the Year, Bryant in 2021 and Chio in 2025. Both won an individual national championship their freshman year. Both personify what consistency looks like in the sport. And, most notability, both understand the weight of expectations that come with early stardom.

“I think one of the main pieces of advice I gave her was don’t try harder just because you have these accolades behind you now,” Bryant said. “You proved yourself, and it’s a new year, and you’re going to prove yourself again. Don’t duplicate what you did last year. Each day, each meet is a new opportunity to do something better.”

It looks like Chio took Bryant’s advice because she isn’t duplicating what she did last year. She’s exceeding it. 

Last week, Chio scored two perfect 10’s against No. 1 Oklahoma on vault and beam. Her all-around score of 39.850 was the highest in program history on the road, while her event titles total climbed to 22 this season and 45 in her career.

Just think about it: Some coaches – in gymnastics, football or any sport, really – might go their whole career without coaching a generational athlete. Most never do.

Then there’s Jay Clark, who’s coached two in the span of four years. First it was Bryant. Now it’s Chio. And nobody should take that, or their greatness, for granted.

“The way she was so calm and collected with everything,” Chio said of Bryant. “She never looked rattled once, that I could see. When she got her injury, it was hard for her to take, but she handled it so well and she is a leader within her gymnastics and outside her gymnastics – with her words, with her advice and everything she does.”

“The biggest takeaway I learned from that was her role was so important, whether or not she was competing,” Chio added. “She was so crucial and important to have on this team and having her still here is really amazing.”

Chio, like Bryant, looked as polished as any freshman in the country last year. Her club team, “Gymcats” – founded in 1992 by Cassie Rice, a former OU gymnast – is a big reason why. Jill Preston, a former UNLV gymnast, teamed up with Rice in 1998, and since then, the two have been mother-figures to hundreds of gymnasts across the nation.

“I have to give credit to my club coaches” Chio said. “I had been at the same gym since I started gymnastics, so for those 16 years, I was really fortunate to have such a great club gym and coaches who really knew what they were doing. I was able to trust them and know they knew what they were doing. All my credit goes to them.”

What made Gymcats different from other gyms? Perspective and grace. While others coached with intensity, Rice and Preston coached with intention, never pushing their athletes past their limits or conceding their best interests for results. In fact, Rice joked how she was considered “the nice coach” because of this philosophy.

“She strives for perfection and wants to be as great as possible, but if the pushing gets too hard than it goes past the point of it being beneficial,” Rice said. “That’s what a lot of gymnastics coaches end up doing, inadvertently, trying to get to excellence. But than they go beyond it to where it’s actually hurting them. We were really careful with that.” 

“One of the most competitive athletes ever too,” Preston added of Chio. “She was never happy with subpar. So it was important for us not to play into that as well. We had to be on the other side, to be like: it’s okay you didn’t win this one. It’s not a big deal. Because on her own, that was already inside of her. I think that helped her get in the zone to where it was just autopilot instead of thinking about the outcome.”

Chio has a small family. Her mother, Sara, was a gymnast growing up but never made it to the college ranks. Her older sister, Nyah, was a club swimmer and is now an oncology nurse in Reno. 

As a two-year-old, Chio and her mother went to “Mommy & Me” gymnastics classes, more for coordination and socialization purposes and less to become the phenom she is today. Since then, she’s never looked back. Chio knew at four she wanted to be an Olympian. When she was four-and-a-half, she made her first team, but according to USA Gymnastics, you can’t compete until you are six.

“We basically had to wait for her age to catch up to her skill level,” Sara said. 

Chio’s quest for perfection has been there every step of the way. When she was a baby, Chio would get frustrated when she played with her Fisher-Price shape sorter. If the shape didn’t fit, she would throw one. 

That would only continue. During a Level 8 meet, Chio fell off the beam. Even though she won the all-around title and won every event, 8-year-old Chio got in the car and was in hysterics. Her mother, Sara, who admitted she probably gets some of that from her, was there to calm her down.

“I was like Kailin, you just won every event and you won all-around,” Sara said to Kailin. “It was a fall. You have to move on from it. It happened. It’s over.”

But how could a perfectionist – who cares so much about her craft – be so calm when the pressure is the highest? 

“She’s always been that way,” Sara said. “It’s a flip of a switch. It’s kind of insane.”

“It’s like a light switch that just flips,” she added. “It’s go-mode, and that’s it. She becomes Kailin.”