Hutchinson leads Pios’ hopes for return to NCAA championship
Jessica Hutchinson has the Olympics in her blood. But to become an all-time great at the University of Denver, she had to forge her own gymnastics path.
Hutchinson’s mom, Silvia Mitova, and grandmother Maia Mitova were both Olympians for Bulgaria. And her grandfather Zarko Mitov was an Olympic coach. Hutchinson competed for the Bulgarian national team when she was younger, only to decide that going the collegiate route would be best for her.
“When I made the decision to pursue NCAA gymnastics rather than competing for Bulgaria and doing elite (level competition), that was when I was like, ‘OK, my journey isn’t going to look the same as theirs, because I’m not trying to go to the Olympics. And that’s OK,’” Hutchinson said. “I was trying to figure out what I wanted for myself, because I needed to do that.”
As her record-breaking senior season underscored, Hutchinson made the right choice.
This year, the all-around star became the first DU gymnast to earn four first-team regular-season All-america honors in one season. She also notched a pair of perfect 10.0s on floor — matching a feat from last year while again emulating her mother’s Olympic routine — and twice tied the Denver all-around record score of 39.825.
“I’ve worked as hard as I possibly could for almost 20 years in this sport, so this is the season where I could say to myself, ‘I’ve done everything I could. Now, let’s just enjoy it,’” Hutchinson said. “It felt like I was competing with freedom this year, and to see that pay off with big moments and team success has been awesome.”
It was last year when Hutchinson first made the decision to copy parts of her mom’s floor routine from the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. At first, she was reluctant to do so, simply because “my mom’s style is so different from mine, especially with her dancing.”
But in the end, she decided to take her mom’s routine and inject bits of her own personality into it. The decision was emblematic of her gymnastics career overall: She will always be known as the daughter of Silvia Mitova, who now runs a renowned gymnastics center in Zieglerville, Penn.
However, Hutchinson clearly has her own brand of finesse in the gym, separate from her mom.