Completed Event: Gymnastics at #10 Iowa (Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series) on January 10, 2026 , Loss , 193.425, to, 196.000
Final
Gymnastics
193.425
#10 Iowa (Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series)
196.000
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Iowa State University Athletics
Meet the Cyclone Gymnasts: Micole O'Dell
02.05.2015 | Gymnastics
AMES, Iowa – Micole O'Dell stepped up to compete on vault for the first time as a collegiate gymnast three weeks ago during the Beauty and the Beast event. She finished her vault, scoring a 9.775, helping her team off to a strong start at their first home meet. It was the freshman's first meet of the season, and she had been cleared to perform only four days earlier.
O'Dell is no stranger to injury. During her 2014 season, she had a fairly serious case of achilles tendonitis. This reduced the amount of practicing she was able to do towards the end of the season. Her coaches at Georgia All-Stars Gymnastics allowed her to practice on her own, still coming into the gym but avoiding excessive impact on her ankle.
For two weeks leading up to the Junior Olympic Nationals, she didn't practice floor at all due to her injury. She decided to compete in the event at the meet and performed what she considers one of her best floor routines she had ever done in Level 10. The judges seemed to agree and she ended up earning the national title on floor.
Micole competed well across the board at the 2014 JO Nationals, placing third on vault, sixth on bars, and eleventh on the all-around, all on top of her first place win on floor. She also placed fourth all-around at the state championships during that season. O'Dell earned third place finishes on vault at both the level 10 state competition in 2013 and the 2012 regionals.
O'Dell wasn't the only successful gymnast to come from her gym. Current Iowa State freshman Haylee Young used to compete for the Georgia All-Stars before moving to Chow's Gymnastics in Des Moines, and 2014 graduate Milan Ivory competed at the club before coming to represent the Cyclones.
“We've been in the gym together since we were like five. She moved to Des Moines because her dad got a job transfer freshman year, and now we're here together,” O'Dell says of her friendship with Haylee, “So we were all three connected, Milan and I were also very close. So watching her go through all four years and really enjoying it made me see how much she liked it. I kind of wanted to follow in her footsteps.”
Growing up, Micole and Haylee became very close competing together. They even formed a ritual for before meets, “We used to watch gymnastics bloopers before every meet. I don't know why, maybe it's a reverse psychology thing. It made us feel better, and it gave better results.”
O'Dell didn't originally plan to come compete for Iowa State. She wanted to stay in state and was planning to walk-on at the University of Georgia. After taking in all of her options, she decided the opportunities competing for Iowa State would provide her were more important than remaining in-state.
Although there were many variables contributing to her choice to be a Cyclone, she was able to pinpoint a few key elements that were most important to her, and what she loves about the being on the team now.
“I'd say just the atmosphere. The team gets along really well. I feel like that's really important, team chemistry. We have a really big freshman class this year, and we had a really big class graduate this past year. I think there are a lot of good performers on this team, so we can probably do really good things this upcoming season. That's exciting to look forward to.”
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