In June 2016, Alyssa Baumann’s dream of competing at the Olympics was torn apart — literally. While training on uneven bars, Baumann injured her elbow, tearing ligaments and muscles. The injury caused her to withdraw from Olympic Trials.

The SEC is known for having the top gymnastics teams in the NCAA, and with that comes some of the top individual gymnasts. Now that the NCAA Championships will only include eight teams instead of 12, some teams that are used to contending and advancing to NCAAs will end up sending only individual gymnasts to the national postseason. Therefore individual competition may be more competitive than ever before, especially in the ultra-competitive SEC.

We’re continuing our series on the new additions to NCAA gymnastics team rosters, highlighting the Florida Gators today. The Gators had a couple of important contributors graduate last year, including Kennedy Baker, Alex McMurtry, and Rachel Slocum. How they replace these losses will determine how far they can go this year in NCAA competition.

For the third installment in our series on the most difficulty in the 2018 NCAA Super Six, we're taking a look at floor exercise. Floor scores are calculated similarly to bars and beam scores: Gymnasts start from a 9.5 and add in difficulty value and connection value in order to get to a 10.0 start value. Gymnasts can add difficulty by performing "E" skills (worth 0.20) and "D" skills (worth 0.10). 

Today, we are taking another look at which teams had the most difficulty in their lineups at the Super Six championships, focusing this time on balance beam. As we mentioned in our previous look at the uneven bars, gymnasts start from a 9.5 difficulty level on bars, beam, and floor, and they are required to add bonus points to get to a 10.0 start value.

Alyssa Baumann spent 2017 rehabbing from elbow surgery instead of competing in Gainesville. The severe elbow injury had taken the former WOGA gymnast out of contention for the 2016 Olympic team. But Baumann hasn’t missed a beat since starting at Florida. She has competed on balance beam and floor exercise in every meet this season and has vaulted on four occasions. 

Florida opened its season with a win on the road at West Virginia, topping the Mountaineers 195.900 to 194.425 in Morgantown, West Virginia, on Friday night.