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Twitter Is Freaking Out Over This All-American Gymnast's Fierce Floor Routine

by Caitlin Cruz

Using hits from Tina Turner and The Jackson 5, UCLA gymnast Katelyn Ohashi's floor routine earned a 10 and promptly went viral. The routine earned Ohashi, a senior at UCLA, her first 10 of the season.

Elite gymnastics (where many future and current Olympians compete) did away with the "Perfect 10" system in the early 2000s, but college gymnastics under the NCAA still uses the base 10 system. This is why Ohashi's incredible performance could earn the so-called perfect score. "I've never seen her perform like that,” UCLA coach Valorie Kondos Field told the Los Angeles Times. "I've never seen her facial, her performance quality, be that professional as I saw tonight."

And the internet took notice of Ohashi's peak performance. "Honestly one of America's greatest athletes and I will not hear otherwise," Rachel Feltman, an editor at Popular Science, tweeted on Sunday.

The UCLA gymnastics team took first place over the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on Saturday. "I know that we've been prepared for the longest time, so in terms of that it was just going out and being more confident in ourselves and everything that we have prepared to do," Ohashi told the Daily Bruin, UCLA's student newspaper.

Ohashi had debuted the routine at the team's season opener on Jan. 4 with a score of 9.95, according to the Pac-12 Network.

With those critical hundredths of a point improvement, the congratulatory tweets rolled in on Sunday as UCLA Athletics shared her perfect 10 routine again. "This makes me happy. Seeing people joyfully excelling at their art - it’s beautiful and emotional. Congrats @katelyn_ohashi!" California League of Conservation Voters CEO Mary Creasman tweeted on Sunday.

As always when a gymnast goes viral, people were rightfully impressed by the athletic prowess Ohashi displayed. One user tweeted, "The power drop into the splits bounce up at the end is mind bending. The power moves in modern floor routines are ridiculous. Awesome + sauce." While another tweeted a lot of heart and "100" emojis with: "This will get playback for me all day. Sheer talent and true perfection. You go!!!!!"

Others picked up on the team-centric nature of collegiate gymnastics. "The amount of fun @katelyn_ohashi appears to be having and how relaxed she looks is what it’s all about. Phenomenal, so much fun to watch this team compete," Twitter user Matthew Crisp tweeted on Sunday.

While Ohashi was pleased with the performance, she still cracked jokes online. "Now I just gotta learn how to clap on the beat," Ohashi tweeted on Saturday with the laughing/crying emoji.

After the general public's love of gymnastics died down following the Olympics, another college athlete's routine went viralUCLA’s Sophina DeJesus's floor routine even landed her on Ellen.

Despite the trend of a single routine that goes viral, collegiate gymnastics is about everyone. "For college gymnasts, the team result is everything; the rest is just commentary. They don’t even bother holding a separate competition to crown the NCAA all-around champion," sports writer Dvora Meyers wrote in Slate in 2017. "It's clear from watching the meets that the gymnasts have embraced this team-first mentality."

And it's true even for Ohashi — just look at her teammates in the background dancing along with her perfect 10 routine.