Lynnzee Brown qualifies for World Artistic Gymnastics Championships

Lynnzee Brown, the 2019 NCAA floor exercise champion, is heading to Antwerp, Belgium.

The 24-year-old made her international debut Saturday (27 May) at the Pan American Gymnastics Championships in Medellin, Colombia, where she represented Haiti.

By virtue of her 17th place finish in the all-around has earned qualification for September's World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Belgium. She scored 48.100.

In order to qualify, Brown needed to finish among the top 11 all-arounders not from nations already qualified for the Worlds.

The University of Denver standout started on the balance beam where performed a kickover front, a back handspring to layout stepout series and a gainer full dismount for an 11.767. On the floor exercise, she posted an 11.633 after going out of bounds on her opening double layout tumbling pass.

In the fourth rotation, Brown nearly stuck her Yurchenko one-and-a-half to score 13.067. She finished up her competition on the uneven bars with an 11.633.

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Brown is coming off the heels of a sixth-year season at Denver, where she helped lead her team back to the NCAAs and she finished fourth all-around.

Competing elite and possibly at the Olympic Games, she told Olympics.com last month, had been something she's thought about since 2015, but "it was just kind of a figment of my imagination."

But then, Yvenel Stephan, a Haitian-born gymnast currently living in France who also competed this week in Medellin, asked if she'd be interested in joining him on an Olympic quest.

"He reached out to me last summer and was like, 'Hey, I'm working on actually making this happen. Do you want to do it, too?'"

It was bad timing. Brown was in the midst of rehabbing her second Achilles tear in two years. Rehab was a struggle at that point, and she wasn't sure her body could handle collegiate gymnastics, much less the harder pounding of elite.

Stephan ended up suffering an Achilles injury of his own, and Brown says the two began to bond over their shared recovery.

"He's really pushing me to do it because it has always been a dream," she said.