Sticking the landing: How gymnast Ciena Alipio turned it out in her senior year at UCLA

As gymnast Ciena Alipio prepares to trade her competition leotards for a cap and gown, she knows she is leaving UCLA having made her mark on the sport she grew up in.

She was pure magic on the balance beam for the Bruins in NCAA competitions, nailing her footing after tricky flip combos on the 4-inch-wide apparatus and sticking her landings like super glue. The sociology major left fans at Pauley Pavilion in awe and earned accolades, including the 2025 Big Ten beam title and first-team postseason All-American honors on beam in 2025 and '26. But in her early days as a Bruin athlete, Alipio says, she wasn't as confident as those perfect landings suggested.

"I was constantly just a little nervous - so freshman and sophomore year, I may have looked really happy up there, but I was very much in my head, very much 'fake it till I make it' kind of thing," she laughed.

Some of the nerves stemmed from the transition from elite gymnastics to the NCAA, where meet wins are determined by overall team score, and from injuries that limited certain moves. But as those past injuries healed and nerves melted away, the former U.S. women's national gymnastics team member quite literally found her footing.

"Last year, when I was able to change my [beam] routine, I had a completely new composition of skills that I absolutely loved and was really happy to be doing those skills, which I think made a big difference," she said, "because [it] felt like I was able to actually choose the skills that I was doing and not working around injuries."

A balancing act

That showed: Alipio did her part to help the team win back-to-back Big Ten championship titles in her junior and senior years. Academically, Alipio was named a Women's Collegiate Gymnastics Association Scholastic All-American in 2024 and made the Academic All-Big Ten list in 2025 and '26. Balancing athletics and studying wasn't easy, but she used time management skills she learned from her mom, Linda.

"When my parents were driving me to and from [practice and school], I'd be doing homework in the car, I'd be eating meals in the car," Alipio said. "My mom was very, very helpful those first few years of getting me to learn [to] take advantage of any spare time you have."

There were also long days on campus and late nights spent studying. Her preferred study spots included the lounge above the team's practice facility and outside the Charles E. Young Research Library, Royce Hall or Haines Hall.

During her junior year, Alipio switched her major from psychology, which she's interested in pursuing in grad school, to sociology. By the time senior year approached, she felt ready for a change in gymnastics as well. After working around injuries, she had put in consistent training for beam, bars and floor exercises.

The summer before her senior year, she told the coaches she wanted to be the team's go-to person. "'If someone is sick or nursing an ankle, and you just want to play it safe, I want to be that person for you,'" she told them. "And they were like, 'We think that is totally plausible. What do you need from us?'"

Alipio and her coaches crafted a plan to prepare for her final season as a UCLA gymnast. In the fall, the possibility of doing three events inched closer to reality … until it became Alipio's reality.

"I was in beam the very first meet, and got to exhibition floor. I was very happy with that. And then the second meet, they were like, 'OK, you're in on floor, and I was like, 'Oh, OK! That was good,'" Alipio said. "I just thought I was going to be one of the ones that they pulled in and out consistently of lineups, just here and there."

And then came the Jan. 25 Michigan State meet. Most of UCLA's team, including Alipio, had come down with a bad flu. But by the time the team got to Michigan, her condition had improved enough that head coach Janelle McDonald asked the senior if she was ready to step up.

"I hadn't competed bars in four years, but I was. [I knew I had] to be ready to go," Alipio said. That was a very big breakout meet for me, because I actually competed in all three events, and then after that I was consistently in the lineup in all three until [the] Big Ten's [competition]."

How she chose UCLA

When Alipio was deciding which college to attend, she had three strict criteria. She wanted a team not only with the potential to make a run for a national championship, but with a supportive team environment. Strong academics were paramount. Alipio, who is Filipino and Navajo, also sought a university with strong diversity, like the San Jose community she grew up in. She found them all at UCLA.

"I would have loved to be more involved in the native group. Sometimes it just didn't work out schedule-wise, but I do know certain individuals within the group, and I'm connected with them," she said. "And then I'm actually participating in Native graduation."

She also recently ticked off a UCLA bucket-list item with her dad, Dante.

"This past weekend, my dad came down so we could go to the Filipino cultural night at Royce, and that's been something he's wanted to do the past four years," she said.

With gymnastics season over, Alipio has allowed herself a little time to reflect on the legacy she leaves behind as a UCLA gymnast.

"To look back and just know that, 'Hey, my name is on the wall a couple times in the gym, and I was a part of the team when we won Big Tens two years in a row, and all of these things, it means a lot more now that I'm out of it than it felt like in the moment," she said.