By John Frierson

Staff Writer

When the Georgia gymnastics team heads into Stegeman Coliseum on Saturday for its GymDog Debut, Nyla Aquino will be in her happy place.

“I am most excited to just get back out there and feel the energy that stems from Steg,” the sophomore said. “Stegeman is literally my favorite place on Earth. Every university that I’ve been to so far, just in my one year of experience, I have yet to be anywhere that beats how I feel when I’m in Steg.”

It’s in the Steg that Aquino gets to express so much of who she is: a very talented gymnast with a lot of energy and a big personality. She said she feeds off the energy of the crowd and wants to give it right back to Georgia’s many loyal fans who make the coliseum such a great place to perform.

“I love having an audience. I love being able to prove to people, this is what I can do; this is what I have,” said Aquino, who made the SEC All-Freshman Team last season.

Aquino, from Boston, competed on vault and floor in all 12 meets as a freshman, with a season-high of 9.75 on floor and 9.950 on vault. Those are her two best events, but she’s also working on her balance beam and uneven bars performances, as well. In terms of what her favorite events are, she said the order is floor, vault, beam and bars.

The 5-foot-tall Aquino has loads of energy and power, which serve her well on floor and vault, gymnastics’ most explosive events. Beam and bars are more technical and require something closer to a zen state to execute the challenging routines.

“Vault and floor were two things that came a lot more easily to me. They were more natural for me, especially as someone having a lot of energy — and a lot of that energy went into my power,” she said. “I’m a very explosive gymnast, with quick twitch (muscles), as my coaches say. That helped me a lot on floor and vault, but I struggled a lot (early on) on beam and bars where you have to be slower, more patient. … Being quick twitch, it scared me a little bit, because I didn’t know how to slow down.”

Aquino said she’s worked hard on all of her events since she got to Georgia and began working with co-head coaches Cécile Canqueteau-Landi and Ryan Roberts, as well as the rest of the staff, and is getting better and more confident in all four disciplines. On bars and beams in particular, she said, “I’ve gotten cleaner, and I’ve gotten more consistent.”

Outside of gymnastics, which she initially began in first grade, one consistent interest in Aquino’s life is an interest in helping others. Her mother is a forensic psychologist at a federal prison, and Aquino went to school in Boston with a lot of children growing up in difficult circumstances. She’s seen how hard life can be for a lot of people, and she wants to do what she can to make the world a better place, particularly for those involved in the prison system.

With that in mind, Aquino is majoring in both Criminal Justice and Sociology, with the goal of going to law school to become a criminal defense attorney. She has also done a lot of mentoring of younger athletes going through the ups and downs of life and sports.

Aquino said it was during the pandemic, when going to school and gymnastics were not possible, that she really realized that she needed to expand her interests beyond the two things that have occupied so much of her time since she was little.

“When I lost most of those things, I was struggling, really struggling, and I was trying to find a purpose, find who I was, and find what to do with myself,” she said. “That’s when I discovered more things that are important to me, what I want to do, what I want to work on outside of gymnastics. Because we all want to have something outside of our sport.”

One of those things for Aquino is art. Her art class when school was online was the only one that really held her attention, and that’s because she was able to really get into digital art. Through that, “I was discovering parts of myself that I probably ignored or had not really poured time into. I just kept going with it, and I really enjoy it. It’s calming, and I can pour so much of who I am into it.”

Aquino took an AP art class during her senior year at Lexington High School, and some of her work, both photography and digital art, was made into an exhibit at a local museum. The exhibit focused on low-income urban living.

“I was once again exploring parts of my identity and how I’ve grown up, and portraying it as something beautiful instead of something that many see as not so fortunate,” she said. “That’s probably my favorite thing that I’ve done.”

On Saturday, Aquino will return to her favorite place, the Steg, to do what she loves and what she pours so much of herself into. She said every gymnast and every coach is a perfectionist, “because that’s what the sport is; the sport is you want to get a perfect 10,” but she’s working on learning how to be okay with something not being perfect.

“I think my freshman year taught me that,” she said. “I had so many imperfections, especially in the preseason, and it was something that I had never experienced before. I’ve learned so much since I’ve been here.”

Since last season, she’s also learned a new floor routine. It’s still “hip-hop, fun and upbeat,” she said,

“I’m so excited to show people what new stuff I have. I have a new tumbling pass, I have a new dance, and I’m just really excited to show everybody,” she said. “I know they’re going to love it.”

Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men’s Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files.