Anna Flynn Cashion celebrates with coach Tim Garrison, right, and teammates after a winning vault this season. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Sophomore Anna Flynn Cashion stands out from her Kentucky gymnastics teammates because she’s a bit taller at 5-foot-8. All but two of her teammates are 5-foot-4 or shorter.
“When I was younger, I was actually pretty small until I hit like ninth tenth grade. Then I had a growth spurt,” Cashion said. “That gave me some issues, and it was definitely harder in gymnastics with your center of gravity and on bars they can only go so far apart. I had to really work with that and learn to be a little bit more patient (due to her height). I can’t rush anything and learn to take my time.”
Despite her growth spurt, Cashion never tried basketball.
“I did the typical country club swimming, and I played soccer when I was younger, but it was gymnastics all the way through,” Cashion said. “My parents did trick (water) skiing growing up, and my mom played soccer. But they met trick skiing because my dad lived on a lake. They loved doing that growing up.
“We did a lot of wake surfing. That’s basically a wave that’s made behind the boat artificially and you just surf behind it. It’s a good bit easier to do than if I were on the ocean. The boat is going, but you stay in the same spot behind the boat so it is easier than surfing in the ocean.”
Did her wake surfing skills transition to gymnastics?
“I wish, but no. I was just thrown into gymnastics when I was younger at age 7. I started in a cheerleading gym and then moved to my club gym that I stayed at all the way through until I went to college,” she said.
She will be competing in her first NCAA Championship April 2-5. Kentucky has climbed from No. 39 in the national rankings two weeks into the season to No. 16 after the SEC Championships. Kentucky will host an NCAA Regional in Memorial Coliseum. Cashion did not compete for UK in the NCAA last season because of a foot injury.
“I think hosting is really important to us. I know we are all super excited to be able to go out there and compete in front of our home crowd. To know we are going to have BBN supporting us on our home turf is super exciting,” Cashion said. “I know we are all eager to see what happens.”
Cashion, a five-star recruit, won the vault title at her first collegiate match in 2025 but competed in only two more meets before her season ended. This year she won the vault title in her first two meets. She has four career vault titles going into the NCAA Regional.
“Just had to shut it down and let the injury heal,” she said. “ I’m definitely back to 100 percent now. It was definitely hard having to sit back and just watch everybody do what I wanted to do last year.
“But it was great to see those girls go out there and do what they did because I got to sit and watch practice and see all the hard work they put in. It gave me hope and excitement to get back out there and do exactly what they were doing and now I am getting to do that again.”
