Lee Nominated for Honda Award
April 24, 2018 | Gymnastics
UCLA sixth-year senior and 2018 NCAA team and balance beam champion Christine Peng-Peng Lee has been selected as one of four nominees for the Class of 2018 Honda Sport Award for Gymnastics.
In her final competition of her career, she scored perfect 10s on her two events – uneven bars and balance beam – to lead UCLA to its seventh NCAA title and first since 2010 in a stunning come-from-behind victory. With UCLA trailing by 0.375, Lee's perfect 10 on uneven bars helped the Bruins close the gap to just 0.175 going into the final event. With the meet on the line, Lee needed to score 9.975 on balance beam to take the victory, and she did that and more, earning her fifth perfect 10 of the season on the event.
UCLA's team title wasn't the only championship Lee won last week. She also claimed the balance beam title with a score of 9.9875 to become UCLA's fourth consecutive NCAA beam champion. She also won the Pac-12 beam title and was named the Pac-12 Gymnastics Scholar-Athlete of the Year. The nine-time All-American finished her illustrious career with 10 perfect 10s, including seven this year.
Lee's journey at UCLA was a long one, as she had to sit out her first two years due to an ACL injury that took her out of the 2012 Olympics. She spent the 2013 season rehabbing on the sidelines and was ready to come back for the 2014 season before learning that her ACL reconstruction did not hold. Lee had to get another surgery and sit out another year. She made her collegiate debut in 2015 and earned a total of four All-America honors. In 2016, a thumb injury and another knee injury limited her to 11 routines on the year, but she returned strong in 2017, becoming the Pac-12 Specialist of the Year and West Region Gymnast of the Year. Her sixth and final year at UCLA was historic, as she scored a school-record five perfect 10s on balance beam and added two more on uneven bars.
Nominated along with Lee are LSU junior Sarah Finnegan, Oklahoma sophomore Maggie Nichols and Stanford senior Elizabeth Price.
Five Bruin gymnasts have won the Honda Award – Kristen Maloney in 2005, Onnie Willis in 2003, Mohini Bhardwaj in 2001, Jill Andrews in 1990 and Sharon Shapiro in 1981.
The Honda Sport Award has been presented annually by the Collegiate Women Sports Awards (CWSA) for the past 42 years to the top women athletes in 12 NCAA-sanctioned sports and signifies "the best of the best in collegiate athletics." The winner of the sport award becomes a finalist for the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year and prestigious 2018 Honda Cup, which will be presented on a live telecast on CBS Sports Network on June 25 in Los Angeles.
The nominees were chosen by a panel of coaches representing the National Association of Collegiate Gymnastics Coaches/Women (NACGC/W). The Honda Sport award winner for gymnastics will be announced next week after voting by administrators from over 1,000 NCAA member schools. Each NCAA member institution has a vote.
Players Mentioned
