Georgia gymnastics goes outside the box with co-coaches; One with ties to Simone Biles

Georgia gymnastics is moving into a new era with co-head coaches, promoting a current assistant coach and pairing him with a well-known personal coach who has worked with world class athletes in the sport.

Cecile Canqueteau-Landi, coach of four-time Olympic gold medal winner Simone Biles, and Bulldogs assistant Ryan Roberts will together try to make Georgia a championship contender once again.

The school announced the hires Thursday night.

Canqueteau-Landi, a former French Olympian, is a U.S. Gymnastics Hall of Fame inductee who along with her husband Laurent Landi has trained 11 U.S. Senior National Team members including Madison Kocian, Alyssa Baumann and Jordan Chiles.

They have coached at Biles’ home club, World Champions Centre in Spring, Texas, since 2017.

Roberts spent the past two seasons as a Georgia assistant coach and has worked to develop a roster this past season that leaned heavily on freshmen and sophomores including All-American Lily Smith, the SEC Freshman of the Year.

He also was an assistant for four seasons at Alabama and spent five years with the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy (WOGA) in Frisco, Texas where he coached members of the U.S., Russian and Ecuadorian national teams.

It’s a unique hiring decision by athletic director Josh Brooks after Georgia pursued former Bulldog coach Jay Clark of LSU who decided to stay in Baton Rouge after a national championship season.

Canqueteau-Landi and Roberts replace former Bulldog gymnastics great Courtney Kupets Carter who was fired April 19 after seven seasons in which the program didn’t get close to the level it had reached under Suzanne Yoculan who retired in 2009 after 10 national titles.

"Cecile and Ryan are two of the most accomplished gymnastics coaches in the sport," Brooks said in a statement. "The combination of their leadership and experiences will give us one the most dynamic coaching staffs in the country. Both coaches have developed and mentored the very best gymnasts in the world, and I know our current and future student-athletes will be excited to learn from two of the best coaches in the country."

Said  Canqueteau-Landi: "Throughout my life, gymnastics has provided me some extraordinary opportunities, from traveling the world and competing for my country at the Olympics to coaching amazing athletes at the highest level. Those experiences have helped me become the coach that I am while putting athlete's well-being first and helping them reach their full potential. I am thrilled for the opportunity to be the new co-head coach of the GymDogs with Ryan. I am looking forward to work with team in the near future!"

Canqueteau-Landi is expected to be coaching Biles at the Olympics in Paris this summer before diving in full-time with her job at Georgia.

“She is not only here for our gymnastics; she’s here for our well-being as humans,” Biles told The Washington Post in 2021. “It was kind of the perfect team we put together to take my gymnastics to new heights.”

Roberts said in a statement:  "I have known Cecile for years, and she is the exact person to help propel this team to greatness. She is a phenomenal person and coach. Articulating how phenomenal she is isn't possible and I am very much looking forward to leading this team with her. I give my word to the team, Cecile, the parents, the commits, and the administration that every decision made will be for the betterment of every student athlete on this team."

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Georgia gymnastics co-head coaches: Cecile Landi and Ryan Roberts