Hallinan's Star Shines At Showtime In The Gym
May 26, 2026 | Gymnastics
SEATTLE – It's showtime.
For hours on end, days and weeks and months in the practice gym with only her teammates and coaches looking on, Chelsea Hallinan works on her balance beam moves. A front-to-back flip. A switch leap to split jump. A full turn. A front aerial.
And then a climactic roundoff back layout with 1½ twists to bring down the curtain – or at the very least, to bring down the house in front of a few thousand fans inside Hec Edmundson Pavilion. All of it melded into a routine that lasts no more than 90 seconds.
All of it leading up to showtime.
Her stage is 16 feet, 5 inches long, four inches wide, 49 inches high – with zero inches' margin for error. It's where her star shines brightest. Where perfection and performance are both passionately pursued, not only for herself but for the entire University of Washington gymnastics team of which she is an integral part.
Then she leaps off of that stage, her feet landing squarely on the mat, her arms thrust high into the air.
She gives the customary salute to the judges, who typically will reward her with scores in the 9.7s or 9.8s or 9.9s – one even gave her a perfect 10 this past season.
And then …
… that's when it's really Hallinan's showtime.
What started out as a little celebratory jump and gradually became a little dance now has grown into a mini-routine celebrating anything from Valentine's Day to the Seattle Seahawks reaching the Super Bowl.
"I kind of wanted to add a little flair to our team so it's not the same as everyone else," said Hallinan, a native of Silverdale across Puget Sound from Seattle who'll turn 21 in June. "Thinking about a new celebration every time was fun for me. It was like, 'If I hit my routine, I get to do a little dance or something.'"
A beam specialist who this year also became a regular on the floor exercise for the Huskies, the junior almost always hits her routine.
"Gymnastics is showmanship. It's a performance for the team to have fun and let loose," said head coach Jessa Hansen Parker, who just finished her second season at the UW helm and recently signed a five-year contract extension through 2031. "I think it adds a really fun energy to the environment. Our team certainly likes (Hallinan's celebrations), and our fans do, too."
FINDING A WAY TO MAKE IT WORK
Whether a gymnast is a one- or two-event specialist like Hallinan is, or is an all-arounder, creativity is a cornerstone to success.
In Hallinan's case, she had to take her creativity to a different level.
When she was in sixth grade, Hallinan injured her elbow. For a while, that meant no more vault or uneven parallel bars. She ultimately took a year off from gymnastics, and when she came back, she focused on the beam – albeit with a certain caveat due to that injury.
"I had to figure out a beam routine without my arms and had to learn a series that doesn't use my arms," she said.
She gradually added all four events back into her repertoire, then returned to doing just beam and floor.
"It was back and forth," Hallinan said.
Competing for the Olympic Gymnastics Center in Silverdale (she did not do high school gymnastics), Hallinan won the regional beam title in 2019 (also placing second on vault, third on floor and third all-around), was the state beam champion in 2021, and was fifth on beam at that year's Level 10 nationals. She won another regional beam crown in 2022.
As the calendar got ready to flip to 2023, graduation from Central Kitsap High School was looming – and so was picking a college.
It didn't take Hallinan long to settle on Washington, even though continuing her gymnastics career would mean walking onto the team that would reach the 2023 NCAA Regional finals.
"I went to UW meets when I was younger and my brother also went to Washington. But my parents went to WSU, so our house is divided," she said with a laugh. "I really cared about academics because gymnastics doesn't last forever. I want to have a future set up. I was really interested in majoring in human centered design and UW is one of the only schools that has that major."
INSTANT IMPACT
Hallinan did indeed walk on to former coach Jen Llewellyn's squad and immediately became the leadoff performer on the beam. She set a then-career high 9.9 in a midseason meet against Stanford and matched it a month later against Oregon State. Hallinan capped her freshman year with 9.775 scores at both the Pacific-12 meet and at the NCAA Regionals.
"Being leadoff was helpful," she said. "I didn't have to get in my head at all. I was able to warm up, visualize my routine once, and just go."
But it still wasn't quite showtime.
"Freshman year, I never did celebrations," she said. "I did one at the Purple-and-Gold (intrasquad) meet, where there were not many fans and no other teams. I did just a small little celebration. The rest of freshman year, I did just a little jump."
Heading into Hallinan's 2025 sophomore season. Hansen Parker had taken over as head coach. Hallinan was still a balance beam stalwart, but now in the No. 4 position, and for a very specific reason.
"Sophomore year, she was more consistent, so we pushed her a little bit later in the lineup to increase her scoring potential," Hansen Parker said. (The better gymnasts on each event typically do go later in the order, and it's not unusual for scores to tick up a bit.) "She has always been the beam queen for us – it comes natural to her, and she has an incredible skillset."
Hansen Parker quickly picked up on another of Hallinan's competitive qualities.
"She has had confidence ever since she stepped on campus, and that's one of the keys to the beam," she said. "A lot of times, you have to teach that and coach that up. But she was ready to go."
Except for one hiccup that year (a 9.225), Hallinan's scores ranged from 9.70 all the way up to a career-high tying 9.90. She wound up being selected to compete at NCAA Regionals, which Washington hosted, and tied for 18th with a 9.875.
As her performances were stepping up, so was showtime.
"Sophomore year, I guess I came out of my shell and wanted to do something fun after my routine," she said. "I feel like gymnastics is kind of serious, especially like in club and elite. I know college is more fun compared to that, and there hadn't been a lot of celebrations in college."
SUPREME ON THE BEAM, FLAIR ON THE FLOOR
Having just completed what was by far her finest season in a purple UW leotard, Hallinan had plenty to celebrate this past winter.
Now the anchor to the beam lineup, she opened with back-to-back 9.900s. For the first seven meets didn't score anything lower than a 9.800. That run was capped by the dual against Minnesota on Feb. 20 when one judge gave her a 10 ("I saw that, and it still does not feel real," she said.) and the other awarded a 9.95 for a final mark of 9.975.
"That was a really cool moment to see that 10 flash," Hansen Parker said. "She has done so many exceptional routines. Sometimes, I don't think she is rewarded for it; other times, she is. To see her rewarded for her difficulty on that event and on her execution, that was a proud moment."
All of those high-scoring performances had her ranked as high as No. 4 in the Big Ten and, at one point, No. 5 nationally.
What's more, she was accomplishing all of it while now dividing her time between beam and floor exercise, having been added to that event this year. She was in the leadoff position, meaning that for home meets, she went from being last up on the beam to first up on the floor.
"Sometimes, that was hard, but I had a lot of fun," Hallinan said of the quick switchover from one event to the other. "I felt way more consistent on the beam. It was cool being ranked for a lot of weeks in the Big Ten and overall (nationally). And getting to do the floor was really cool."
It also was helpful to the Huskies. After scoring in the 9.6s for her first two floor routines, Hallinan went nine straight meets with scores ranging from 9.775 to a career-high 9.850, the latter on Feb. 7 against Illinois.
"She has great expression and she's our height woman," Hansen Parker said. "She's got a lot of energy, she picks up people around her, and she's super funny. That personality really comes out in her floor routine, as well, so she's a spark to our lineup."
And of course, there was showtime.
Maybe it was a "people's elbow" celebration a la WWE star Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. Or flinging imaginary footballs on the night before the Seahawks played in the Super Bowl. Or something inspired by Valentine's Day.
"Thinking about a new celebration every time was fun for me," Hallinan said. "At the beginning (of the season), my teammates didn't realize I was going to do it. They would come rushing toward me, but I would be in kind of a celebration and they wouldn't see it coming and then would have to stand back for a second and then come and high-five me."
If she had to pick a favorite, no question it would be the Seahawks celly.
"I actually did not think of that one myself," Hallinan said. "But it was the day before the Super Bowl and my coach was like, 'Ooo, are you going to do a little football something because the Super Bowl is tomorrow?' I grew up loving the Seahawks and my dad is a huge fan, and he said, 'You should do something football.'"
"I didn't really know if they have a thing (that symbolizes the Seahawks). I remembered that they do the wings, but didn't know if people would understand that. So I did a little football throw like a touchdown, then did the wings. My dad loved that celebration, and it was the people's favorite, too, so I'm glad I did that … And the Seahawks won!"
Hansen Parker is glad, too – not just for the Seahawks celebration, but for all of them.
"It became a thing. Our videographer got it, the fans really like it, and it was such an exclamation point to the end of the routine," she said. "She anchored our lineup, and it was an exclamation point to the end of the beam."
A BRIEF BREAK – THEN RIGHT BACK AT IT
Officially, it's now the offseason for the Huskies after they reached the second round of the NCAA Regionals. Maintenance work in their practice gym, primarily some upgraded lighting, kept Hallinan and her teammates away from the equipment.
But that doesn't mean they were sitting around, either.
"We've been in the weight room lifting every day, but we've had a little break," she said. "We've been going to a club gym, so we're ready to start back up practicing. I think my body needed the rest. Having lower hours and everything will be helpful."
From walking on as a freshman, Hallinan will return for her senior season on a full scholarship. She's already determining what pathway she's going to take toward making her final year on Montlake even better than the one she just finished.
"I'm focusing on upgrading some of my floor passes. There's a rule change that's going to require another element, so I'm going to try to get another pass and work on my endurance. On beam, I want to play around with some different series combinations. And I want to clean up my dismount – that's the one thing I really want to be perfect, and it's the one thing I'm getting deducted on.
"Stay strong, stay healthy, and still have fun," she added.
There are some things that Hansen Parker doesn't want to see change – in particular, all of the intangibles that make Chelsea Hallinan who she is.
"She loves gymnastics, and she's an amazing student as well. That's a huge asset she brings to our team is excellence in the classroom, and in one of the more challenging majors," Hansen Parker said. "She's an excellent teammate and has strong relationships with everyone. When she sees someone struggling, she picks them up. She holds herself to high standards.
"She's really the heartbeat of the team."
That's especially true …
… when it's showtime.
For news, scores, highlights and more, download the Go Huskies app on your mobile device. Follow @UWgymnastics on Instagram, X, Threads, Facebook and TikTok and subscribe to UW Athletics on YouTube for the latest on the Dawgs.
For hours on end, days and weeks and months in the practice gym with only her teammates and coaches looking on, Chelsea Hallinan works on her balance beam moves. A front-to-back flip. A switch leap to split jump. A full turn. A front aerial.
And then a climactic roundoff back layout with 1½ twists to bring down the curtain – or at the very least, to bring down the house in front of a few thousand fans inside Hec Edmundson Pavilion. All of it melded into a routine that lasts no more than 90 seconds.
All of it leading up to showtime.
Her stage is 16 feet, 5 inches long, four inches wide, 49 inches high – with zero inches' margin for error. It's where her star shines brightest. Where perfection and performance are both passionately pursued, not only for herself but for the entire University of Washington gymnastics team of which she is an integral part.
Then she leaps off of that stage, her feet landing squarely on the mat, her arms thrust high into the air.
She gives the customary salute to the judges, who typically will reward her with scores in the 9.7s or 9.8s or 9.9s – one even gave her a perfect 10 this past season.
And then …
… that's when it's really Hallinan's showtime.
What started out as a little celebratory jump and gradually became a little dance now has grown into a mini-routine celebrating anything from Valentine's Day to the Seattle Seahawks reaching the Super Bowl.
"I kind of wanted to add a little flair to our team so it's not the same as everyone else," said Hallinan, a native of Silverdale across Puget Sound from Seattle who'll turn 21 in June. "Thinking about a new celebration every time was fun for me. It was like, 'If I hit my routine, I get to do a little dance or something.'"
A beam specialist who this year also became a regular on the floor exercise for the Huskies, the junior almost always hits her routine.
"Gymnastics is showmanship. It's a performance for the team to have fun and let loose," said head coach Jessa Hansen Parker, who just finished her second season at the UW helm and recently signed a five-year contract extension through 2031. "I think it adds a really fun energy to the environment. Our team certainly likes (Hallinan's celebrations), and our fans do, too."
FINDING A WAY TO MAKE IT WORK
Whether a gymnast is a one- or two-event specialist like Hallinan is, or is an all-arounder, creativity is a cornerstone to success.
In Hallinan's case, she had to take her creativity to a different level.
When she was in sixth grade, Hallinan injured her elbow. For a while, that meant no more vault or uneven parallel bars. She ultimately took a year off from gymnastics, and when she came back, she focused on the beam – albeit with a certain caveat due to that injury.
"I had to figure out a beam routine without my arms and had to learn a series that doesn't use my arms," she said.
She gradually added all four events back into her repertoire, then returned to doing just beam and floor.
"It was back and forth," Hallinan said.
Competing for the Olympic Gymnastics Center in Silverdale (she did not do high school gymnastics), Hallinan won the regional beam title in 2019 (also placing second on vault, third on floor and third all-around), was the state beam champion in 2021, and was fifth on beam at that year's Level 10 nationals. She won another regional beam crown in 2022.
As the calendar got ready to flip to 2023, graduation from Central Kitsap High School was looming – and so was picking a college.
It didn't take Hallinan long to settle on Washington, even though continuing her gymnastics career would mean walking onto the team that would reach the 2023 NCAA Regional finals.
"I went to UW meets when I was younger and my brother also went to Washington. But my parents went to WSU, so our house is divided," she said with a laugh. "I really cared about academics because gymnastics doesn't last forever. I want to have a future set up. I was really interested in majoring in human centered design and UW is one of the only schools that has that major."
INSTANT IMPACT
Hallinan did indeed walk on to former coach Jen Llewellyn's squad and immediately became the leadoff performer on the beam. She set a then-career high 9.9 in a midseason meet against Stanford and matched it a month later against Oregon State. Hallinan capped her freshman year with 9.775 scores at both the Pacific-12 meet and at the NCAA Regionals.
"Being leadoff was helpful," she said. "I didn't have to get in my head at all. I was able to warm up, visualize my routine once, and just go."
But it still wasn't quite showtime.
"Freshman year, I never did celebrations," she said. "I did one at the Purple-and-Gold (intrasquad) meet, where there were not many fans and no other teams. I did just a small little celebration. The rest of freshman year, I did just a little jump."
Heading into Hallinan's 2025 sophomore season. Hansen Parker had taken over as head coach. Hallinan was still a balance beam stalwart, but now in the No. 4 position, and for a very specific reason.
"Sophomore year, she was more consistent, so we pushed her a little bit later in the lineup to increase her scoring potential," Hansen Parker said. (The better gymnasts on each event typically do go later in the order, and it's not unusual for scores to tick up a bit.) "She has always been the beam queen for us – it comes natural to her, and she has an incredible skillset."
Hansen Parker quickly picked up on another of Hallinan's competitive qualities.
"She has had confidence ever since she stepped on campus, and that's one of the keys to the beam," she said. "A lot of times, you have to teach that and coach that up. But she was ready to go."
Except for one hiccup that year (a 9.225), Hallinan's scores ranged from 9.70 all the way up to a career-high tying 9.90. She wound up being selected to compete at NCAA Regionals, which Washington hosted, and tied for 18th with a 9.875.
As her performances were stepping up, so was showtime.
"Sophomore year, I guess I came out of my shell and wanted to do something fun after my routine," she said. "I feel like gymnastics is kind of serious, especially like in club and elite. I know college is more fun compared to that, and there hadn't been a lot of celebrations in college."
SUPREME ON THE BEAM, FLAIR ON THE FLOOR
Having just completed what was by far her finest season in a purple UW leotard, Hallinan had plenty to celebrate this past winter.
Now the anchor to the beam lineup, she opened with back-to-back 9.900s. For the first seven meets didn't score anything lower than a 9.800. That run was capped by the dual against Minnesota on Feb. 20 when one judge gave her a 10 ("I saw that, and it still does not feel real," she said.) and the other awarded a 9.95 for a final mark of 9.975.
"That was a really cool moment to see that 10 flash," Hansen Parker said. "She has done so many exceptional routines. Sometimes, I don't think she is rewarded for it; other times, she is. To see her rewarded for her difficulty on that event and on her execution, that was a proud moment."
All of those high-scoring performances had her ranked as high as No. 4 in the Big Ten and, at one point, No. 5 nationally.
What's more, she was accomplishing all of it while now dividing her time between beam and floor exercise, having been added to that event this year. She was in the leadoff position, meaning that for home meets, she went from being last up on the beam to first up on the floor.
"Sometimes, that was hard, but I had a lot of fun," Hallinan said of the quick switchover from one event to the other. "I felt way more consistent on the beam. It was cool being ranked for a lot of weeks in the Big Ten and overall (nationally). And getting to do the floor was really cool."
It also was helpful to the Huskies. After scoring in the 9.6s for her first two floor routines, Hallinan went nine straight meets with scores ranging from 9.775 to a career-high 9.850, the latter on Feb. 7 against Illinois.
"She has great expression and she's our height woman," Hansen Parker said. "She's got a lot of energy, she picks up people around her, and she's super funny. That personality really comes out in her floor routine, as well, so she's a spark to our lineup."
And of course, there was showtime.
Maybe it was a "people's elbow" celebration a la WWE star Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. Or flinging imaginary footballs on the night before the Seahawks played in the Super Bowl. Or something inspired by Valentine's Day.
"Thinking about a new celebration every time was fun for me," Hallinan said. "At the beginning (of the season), my teammates didn't realize I was going to do it. They would come rushing toward me, but I would be in kind of a celebration and they wouldn't see it coming and then would have to stand back for a second and then come and high-five me."
If she had to pick a favorite, no question it would be the Seahawks celly.
"I actually did not think of that one myself," Hallinan said. "But it was the day before the Super Bowl and my coach was like, 'Ooo, are you going to do a little football something because the Super Bowl is tomorrow?' I grew up loving the Seahawks and my dad is a huge fan, and he said, 'You should do something football.'"
"I didn't really know if they have a thing (that symbolizes the Seahawks). I remembered that they do the wings, but didn't know if people would understand that. So I did a little football throw like a touchdown, then did the wings. My dad loved that celebration, and it was the people's favorite, too, so I'm glad I did that … And the Seahawks won!"
Hansen Parker is glad, too – not just for the Seahawks celebration, but for all of them.
"It became a thing. Our videographer got it, the fans really like it, and it was such an exclamation point to the end of the routine," she said. "She anchored our lineup, and it was an exclamation point to the end of the beam."
A BRIEF BREAK – THEN RIGHT BACK AT IT
Officially, it's now the offseason for the Huskies after they reached the second round of the NCAA Regionals. Maintenance work in their practice gym, primarily some upgraded lighting, kept Hallinan and her teammates away from the equipment.
But that doesn't mean they were sitting around, either.
"We've been in the weight room lifting every day, but we've had a little break," she said. "We've been going to a club gym, so we're ready to start back up practicing. I think my body needed the rest. Having lower hours and everything will be helpful."
From walking on as a freshman, Hallinan will return for her senior season on a full scholarship. She's already determining what pathway she's going to take toward making her final year on Montlake even better than the one she just finished.
"I'm focusing on upgrading some of my floor passes. There's a rule change that's going to require another element, so I'm going to try to get another pass and work on my endurance. On beam, I want to play around with some different series combinations. And I want to clean up my dismount – that's the one thing I really want to be perfect, and it's the one thing I'm getting deducted on.
"Stay strong, stay healthy, and still have fun," she added.
There are some things that Hansen Parker doesn't want to see change – in particular, all of the intangibles that make Chelsea Hallinan who she is.
"She loves gymnastics, and she's an amazing student as well. That's a huge asset she brings to our team is excellence in the classroom, and in one of the more challenging majors," Hansen Parker said. "She's an excellent teammate and has strong relationships with everyone. When she sees someone struggling, she picks them up. She holds herself to high standards.
"She's really the heartbeat of the team."
That's especially true …
… when it's showtime.
For news, scores, highlights and more, download the Go Huskies app on your mobile device. Follow @UWgymnastics on Instagram, X, Threads, Facebook and TikTok and subscribe to UW Athletics on YouTube for the latest on the Dawgs.
Players Mentioned
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