As the Iowa women’s gymnastics team prepares to take on Rutgers this weekend, the main focus revolves around “moving the chains” and getting the fine details worked out. 

“Moving the chains” is a football reference that the GymHawks have taken as their own to build the mentality of one success leading to another. 

“To get a first down in football, you have to move 10 yards before you can score a touchdown, and so we focus on the little things that will help us get to our touchdown,” senior Nicole Chow said. 

This was the team’s motto two years ago, but the gymnasts loved it so much, they incorporated it again.  

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“It is every handstand, every stuck landing, every hit routine, and then we have to hit six routines in a rotation and moving on to the next one because that will add up to the big things,” Chow said. “And that is our focus for Rutgers and the season.” 

Iowa’s Jan. 19 loss to Minnesota (195.475-194.350) was just a small part of moving toward the team’s “touchdown” goal.

“We do not want to think too far ahead, but for this competition, I think we just want to get that first down again,” junior Clair Kaji said. “Going one step at a time, not focusing on the competition itself, but on the first one up on the first event and going from there.” 

The GymHawks are 1-3 this season, but in a sport that focuses on perfection, head coach Larissa Libby just wants her gymnasts to know that a score does not define who they are or what they are capable of achieving. 

Libby chooses to talk about what the gymnasts have succeeded in and how they can work to improve what did not turn out the way they wanted. 

Against Minnesota, the GymHawks tallied a score of 48.950 on bars to give them the highest rotation score with four individual GymHawks tying season-bests. 

That was something Libby wanted to celebrate and encourage heading into Rutgers. 

“We always try to come back and talk about the things that we did well, maybe the things that we learned about ourselves as a team, especially since we are a young team,” Libby said.

In sports, there is validation that comes from seeing a winning score. Libby and her staff are focused on making sure that the gymnasts don’t look to the scoreboard; instead, they want the gymnasts to look within to find validation. 

“In your score, you want to feel validated,” Libby said. “My job right now is to make sure that they don’t look for validation there. They need to look for validation within themselves, and that is the only place that they are going to get validation.” 

As the GymHawks take the floor on Saturday in Carver-Hawkeye, that focus will be on getting the “first down” and having success from within.