The Explosion Gymnastics competitive team recently took a trip south to attend the California Grand Invitational. From left: Abigail Frazer, Alexia Reece, Noelle Chan, Jordyn Look, Annabelle Falk and Araeya Stephan. Jeannette Benoit-Leipert Meridian Source
Six local competitive gymnasts returned from the California Grand Invitational with some new hardware.
Explosion Gymnastics competitive gymnastics coach Siiri Miller said she was impressed with the way the girls performed at the international competition.
“It was a very big competition, you had clubs coming from Canada and all over the States and Mexico,” explained Miller.
“So, the girls had the chance to be competing in a very big competition against a lot of other athletes. They had a lot of fun,” she said, adding they had a chance to check out Disneyland while they were in Anaheim, as well.
“I thought they did very well, it was our first meet of the year and it was earlier than usual. Usually, our meets start in mid-February, and this was in January,” said Miller.
The competition took place from Jan. 14 to 16, to be exact.
“They did really well, they held their own. They all came home with some medals, and we had one girl place first on vault. So overall it was a really really good competition,” said Miller,
adding one of the event organizers is Olympic gold medalist Amanda Borden.
“So that was pretty cool, I got to chat with her a bit,” she said.
For one of the athletes, it was her first time in a level-five competition. For some of the others, it was their second year at level five, and some of them were competing at level six or seven.
“It was a little bit different than our normal ones (competitions) … there was like four different things going on at the same time,” said gymnast Araeya Stephan.
“I don’t remember all of them (what she placed in), but I got first on vault, fifth on bars.”
Stephan’s teammate Noelle Chan also did well at the event.
“It was good. It was super big and it was pretty fun. I got third all around,” said Chan, adding her favourite part of gymnastics is spending time with her teammates.
The team will be back on the road this winter and into the spring with competitions throughout Alberta.
“We’re hoping to do another travel competition possibly next year,” said Miller.
