A busy season for gymnasts begins this week.
The 2024 Mountain Invitational will be held in Okotoks this week. The following weekend, the Alberta Xcel and Compulsory Championships will be hosted by St. Albert.
Thousands of gymnasts will appear at both tournaments, including four young athletes from Redcliff’s Twist and Flip Gymnastics Club.
Coach Eva Paniti-Meyer said that she’s been coaching for nearly 40 years. She said that gymnastics is a foundational sport that is 60 per cent physical, 40 per cent mental.
“Gymnastics is a very hard sport. It’s not just physical, it’s mental as well, so it’s very important for a coach to train them mentally as well as physically,” Paniti-Meyer said.
One of the gymnasts, Tenley Aberle, said that she loves gymnastics and tournaments.
“I’m really excited, I love the challenge. There”s butterflies every single time,” Tenley said.
“It’s pretty competitive. We all want first, we all want to be on that first place podium,” she said.
For Lauren Pancoast, competition is just a time to show off her new skills.
“I like competition and practice. Practice because there’s always new skills you get to learn and I like competition because you get to show the skills,” Lauren said.
“I think it’s more about the fun, but if you do get out onto the podium, you’re all like yay,” she said.
Myla Aberle said that she agrees with the rest of her team.
“I kind of like perfecting my skills better because then at competition, you get, like Lauren said, when you get to first it’s really exciting,” Myla said.
Sophia Calhoun said that she loves practicing her routine.
“I just learn a new trick every day. I love that,” she said.
Lauren said that she thinks music is important to everyone’s routine as it helps them remember their next move.
“I think it’s really important too because when I do floor, it’s like the music helps me remember what to do and if you don’t have music, you don’t have dance,” she said.
Tinley said learning the routines isn’t the tricky part, but rather perfecting it.
“Getting it down easy and it just flows it takes a lot of practice. It’s not too hard to learn it, but perfecting it and getting it to the right amount that you want it at is hard.”
At the end of the day, the girls say they all feel like sisters. Lauren said that no competition can come between the girls.
“I think we’re always just connected and we can push each other to bring out each others best,” she said.
Paniti-Meyer said that while her team has performed extremely well during competitions, there’s more to gymnastics than just medalling.
“They are really talented girls. It’s totally a joy to coach them and train them. They are very hard workers and they love gymnastics. That’s all that matters,” Paniti-Meyer said.
