Li Li Leung leaves a legacy of transparency behind at USA Gymnastics — Ana Barbosu celebrates floor gold at Euros
By Lela Moore
The IX: Gymnastics Saturday with Lela Moore, June 7, 2025
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Li Li Leung announced Thursday that she would step down as the president and CEO of USA Gymnastics at the end of 2025.
Leung was hired in 2019 into a USA Gymnastics that was, to put it charitably, in ruins. The Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal devastated the sport. The entire board of directors was replaced in 2018. Seventy percent of the staff turned over. All of these things were viewed as largely positive steps by the gymnastics community, but leadership remained an issue (you may remember the nine-month reign of Kerry Perry, but you probably don’t remember it fondly).
Enter Leung. A year after she was hired, the pandemic upended the Olympics. In December 2020, USA Gymnastics released an Athlete Bill of Rights.
After the Olympics finally took place in the summer of 2021, Leung continued the housecleaning. Tom Forster, whose management of the women’s elite program and the handling of the Olympic team selection were widely scorned, resigned in December 2021. Leung hired Chellsie Memmel and Alicia Sacramone Quinn (along with Dan Baker, who has since left his role as developmental program lead and was replaced by Daymon Jones, who is also a new head coach at World Champions Centre, famously owned by Simone Biles’s parents) to head the women’s elite program in May 2022.
That is an enormous amount of change for one CEO to oversee, and it seems like from the phrasing of Leung’s statements that she is ready for another person to steer the ship into the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 now that most of the flotsam and jetsam has been jettisoned. (That’s me paraphrasing with the marine analogies, but you get my point.)
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Leung has done a lot for an organization that I think many were ready to write off in 2018, and again after the struggles of the 2021 Olympics showed that athletes, coaches and administration alike had not been able to process the repercussions of the scandals fully.
She has recovered major sponsors, including Nike, which will continue its work with USAG through the LA Games. She has regained the trust of athletes and coaches, at least from an outsider’s perspective. She has a team running the women’s elite program that has been inside and outside it, and she was able to help refine and select an Olympic squad that produced a team gold medal and multiple individual medals at the Paris Olympics last year.
On the USA Gymnastics website now is its mission statement for the 2025-28 quad. At the bottom are the organizational principles: Integrity, safety, listening, accountability and transparency. After the Nassar scandal, I truly did not think the organization would be able to use those words with a straight face. That they can is testament to what Leung has wrought within. I wish her success in the future.
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Other gym news
The Balance Beam Situation has a piece on all the medals at the European Championships.
College Gym News this week has an article on “hidden gem” routines from the 2025 NCAA season, early power rankings for the 2026 season, and an interview with Utah standout Avery Neff, who will be merely a sophomore for the Utes next season despite seemingly using up several gymnastics lives (her own and ours) during her freshman season.
Over at The Gymternet, check out the results of Euros and the Canadian Championships.
You can read the minutes from the most recent Women’s International Elite Committee meeting here.
Everest Gymnastics coach Qi Han, who coached 2016 Olympic alternate Ashton Locklear and was subsequently accused by Locklear and others of abuse, has been banned for life by SafeSport.
Adele Ossi, a former Clemson commit, has changed her commitment to Arizona State University. Clemson, you may recall, recently underwent a head coach change.
Helen Kevric of Germany had surgery and gave an update on Instagram:
Brazil’s Jade Barbosa announced her pregnancy:
Reese Esponda, a U.S. elite, debuted a new hands-free floor pass:
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Five at The IX: Ana Barbosu
Ana Barbosu of Romania won floor gold at the 2025 European Championships last week. She gave this interview after her victory. Of course, many know her best as the winner, then loser, then eventual winner again of the Olympic floor medal in Paris. Barbosu references that situation and indicates that Euros has provided her with a bit of vindication. The Olympic floor final is still in contention with the Swiss Supreme Court.
Barbosu will attend Stanford University in the fall and will compete in NCAA gymnastics beginning in January 2026.
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