Anya Pilgrim turned in a dazzling performance in her Florida debut on Friday night at Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center. (Photo: Ashley Ray/UAA Communications)
This Pilgrim Announced UF Arrival With Eye-Catching Performance
Sunday, January 14, 2024 | Gymnastics, Scott Carter
Share:
By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Anya Pilgrim is no stranger to the heightened awareness and uptick in pressure when it's time to perform on the biggest stages.
Before Pilgrim made her Gators debut on Friday night in front of a sold-out crowd at the O'Dome, she was fresh off representing Barbados at the 2023 World Championships in Belgium and the Pan-American Games in Chile. Pilgrim's maternal grandparents met years ago while representing Barbados in international competition, her grandfather in basketball and grandmother a field hockey player. The 19-year-old Pilgrim hails from Germantown, Md., and trained at Hill's Gymnastics as she developed into a top performer on the junior level.
If Hill's sounds familiar, it's the same place Kayla DiCello, a star freshman for UF a season ago, trains. DiCello is using a gap year to attempt to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Meanwhile, Pilgrim is part of a UF freshman class that showed off in the season-opening win against George Washington, Fisk and Talladega College in a quad meet.
Still, no one matched Pilgrim's introductory performance.
She competed in the all-around and won the title, posting a score of 39.525, highlighted by a 9.925 in the floor exercise. There's more to the story than numerals and decimal points.
Pilgrim's all-around total set a program record for a freshman in the season opener, bettering the 39.475-mark by DiCello from a season ago and that Trinity Thomas scored in 2019 in her UF debut in a home win over Missouri.
Top 5 Gator Freshmen All-Around Totals in Season Opener
As Pilgrim prepared for her collegiate debut on Friday, she turned to Thomas, the highly decorated former UF gymnast in her first season as a student assistant coach, for some advice.
"It's very inspiring to look up to her every single day in the gym,'' Pilgrim said. "I actually asked her [Friday] if she had any secrets for me. She said no, just be yourself.
"That's what I did."
Pilgrim's background undoubtedly helped her move into a different arena in the sport, this one with more enthusiastic fans and teammates cheering your every move. She has traveled internationally for gymnastics and graduated from the prestigious Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, Md., this past summer. The all-girls Catholic college prep academy has produced notable graduates such as Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky, journalist and author Maria Shriver, and the late Cokie Roberts, a longtime political journalist for ABC News.
At 5-foot-5 with long limbs and graceful motions, Pilgrim's captivating presence on the competition floor quickly became a fan favorite on Friday night. She highlighted a meet in which head coach Jenny Rowland used 13 gymnasts in the competitive lineup, including five freshmen.
"What I especially liked about her performance is that I saw her perform just how she trains on a daily basis,'' Rowland said. "That consistency is key and something that we look for in a member of the lineup. That consistency creates a lot of confidence amongst her team members, and I know she has helped solidify positions in many events that allow her to have that success and allow her team and coaches to have the confidence in her to go out there and execute just as she does in training."
In the post-meet press conference, as Rowland commented on the jitters that inevitably accompany a freshman's debut, she turned to Pilgrim for confirmation.
"Definitely,'' Pilgrim said.
But to those watching, there was little evidence to support Pilgrim had anything but ice water in her veins as she follows in the footsteps of Thomas and so many others in recent years who have elevated Florida's program into one of the nation's best.
Senior Ellie Lazzari still considers her college debut one of the most memorable experiences of her gymnastics life. She was a bundle of nerves, eager to compete but aware of the different environment and team settings that make the college sport so different from elite-level gymnastics.
What she saw from Pilgrim and the UF freshmen caught Lazzari's attention.
"It made my heart so happy,'' she said. "So calm, cool and collected."
Pilgrim pulled on her leotard and ran out of the Gator head open to whatever Rowland had planned for her. She wasn't sure whether she would compete in all four events and took that mindset onto the floor.
"I knew I was going to warm up on everything and just see how the night went,'' she said.
How did the night go in her view after a 9.875 on vault, 9.875 on bars, 9.850 on beam and a 9.925 on floor?
"I think overall it went really well. I made some improvements on each event, and then floor I was really, really proud of because that's usually my event that I need to work a little harder on, so for that to be my standout tonight was really great," Pilgrim said.
Pilgrim's background prepared her well for moments like Friday. And so did her mindset on why she chose to come to Florida.
She is a high achiever and aims to continue flying high.
"From middle school, I loved Florida because of Disney World and everything about it,'' she said. "So, when I got older, I started looking at the academics and the athletics, and I just knew I wanted to be somewhere where I was surrounded by greatness everywhere, and that's when I knew this was going to be the place for me."
One meet into her college career, Pilgrim fits right in.
