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Nia Dennis, UCLA gymnastics bring #BlackExcellence to NCAA championships

Nia Dennis is sorry she lied, but she wanted to keep this a secret.

When asked of possibly upgrading her vault last week for the NCAA championships, the senior said she was going to stand pat on a simple full-twisting Yurchenko. Yet on Friday in Fort Worth, there Dennis was pulling off two full twists in the air after her round off-back handspring entry.

She hadn’t done the skill, which is among the hardest vaults in college gymnastics, in six years when she was an elite gymnast training for the Olympics. If this was going to be the end of her gymnastics career, she wanted it to be perfect.