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COLUMBIA, Mo. — Helen Hu blew her cover by showing off in a yoga class.

She was in India, one of 15 countries she visited as part of a gap year between gymnastics seasons that she didn’t yet know was a gap year. Hu fell in love with surfing in Ecuador, trekked through Europe and Southeast Asia and leaned into the spirituality of yoga in India.

It was there that Hu, an All-American gymnast at Missouri, was too flexible not to draw suspicion from instructors.

“Who are you?� she remembers them asking.

That’s what she was traveling the world to find out.

Hu had been one of the most talented collegiate gymnasts in the country. An All-American on the beam and bars in 2020, her freshman year. The same beam honor in 2022, the year after an ACL injury, then again in 2023. Some 26 scores of 9.9 or better on beam across those three seasons of competition but no perfect 10s.

Hu, who hails from Chicago, retired at the end of the 2023 season.

“I was worn down to the bone,� she told the Post-Dispatch. “I was so done. As much as I love the sport, I was in a lot of pain. And I was very mentally burnt out just from four years of doing school with gymnastics, having every minute of my day planned out and booked.�

Except she wasn’t really done. After her year spent “gallivanting� — her word —around the globe, Hu is back in action for the No. 9 Tigers, who will host No. 14 Alabama, Illinois and Iowa in the second annual “Zou to the Lou� meet at 6:30 p.m. Friday in St. Charles’ Family Arena.

In terms of her scores, she’s back better than ever. Hu’s first 10 of her career came early this season in a meet at Oklahoma. She was named the Southeastern Conference’s specialist of the week three weeks in a row. All that for an athlete who came back this season without any real expectations.

“I didn’t really have any goals other than to get her back in a leotard, quite honestly,� MU gymnastics coach Shannon Welker said.

He understood when Hu called it a career in 2023 but privately wished she would cash in on the extra year of eligibility she received from the pandemic-altered 2020 season.

“There was so much more, at least in my head, that was left for her,� Welker said.

When Hu came back from her travels to Columbia for a former teammate’s wedding last June, he had his chance to make a pitch. Hu ventured to the gymnastics facility with current gymnast Jocelyn Moore and hopped up onto the beam — just to see what she could still do.

She could still do quite a bit. Even after a year away from the sport, Hu didn’t feel all that rusty. Welker brought up the possibility of her coming back for a fifth year.

“I took it as a joke,� Hu said.

It wasn’t.

The decision seemed to be a relatively simple one, once Hu realized that a return could actually happen. She’d done the comeback bit before, heading into the 2022 season after missing all of 2021 due to a preseason ACL injury. But that process had contributed to her burnout the first time around.

“I had built up this expectation for myself, coming back my junior year, to be just as good — if not better,� Hu said. “Come back stronger, right? That’s always the goal. You know, you take a hit, you come back stronger. I didn’t feel like I came back stronger, so it was really difficult for me to accept and know that I was never going to get back to the exact same gymnastics that I had pre-injury.�

So she kept herself from expecting too much out of this season. It would be great, she thought, if she could land that elusive 10.

“I think everyone else had a feeling that I would get it, and I didn’t have that feeling,� Hu said. “I like to hope for the best, but I prepare for the worst. And after four years in a row of completing routines where I felt I could have gotten a 10 but didn’t, I didn’t want to go into this year with that expectation and get let down.�

Welker was among those who sensed a 10 was possible.

“It wasn’t really a question of ‘if,’� he said. “It was really a question of ‘when.’�

And on Jan. 17, she got it, dismounting from the beam to see the perfect marks she’d spent so much time pushing for.

With that secure, her body refreshed and her mind at ease, she’s still well equipped to star on the beam down the stretch of Mizzou’s season — in which the Tigers are once again eyeing a postseason run.

Yet “there’s no pressure,� Welker said. “It’s opportunity — that’s what it really is.�

Hu didn’t have to come back. She chose to, so it feels far more like an opportunity than any sort of obligation.

“It’s a world of difference, really: where I am mentally, physically and really just who I am,� Hu said.