A local gymnastics club is hosting a provincial competition featuring competitive female artistic gymnasts on March 5 and 6 – the first competition for Airdrie Edge Gymnastics' Competitive Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Team, and the second for the club since the COVID-19 pandemic began nearly two years ago.
The competition follows the club’s Competitive Trampoline & Tumbling (T&T) team’s performance at the Alberta 1st Cup/Pegasus Classic Invitational, which was held at Genesis Centre in northeast Calgary from Feb. 11 to 13. The meet featured 250 athletes from 17 clubs across Alberta and Saskatchewan.
According to Jamie Atkin, Airdrie Edge club manager and T&T head coach, the Alberta Gymnastics Federation-sanctioned meet featured pre-competitive athletes as young as six years old to elite senior athletes at the highest level in the sport.
“This was the first competition to happen since February of 2020,” Atkin said. “For all but two of these athletes, this was their first time attending any T&T event at all, and we couldn’t be more proud of their efforts and performances.”
Pre-competitive gymnasts Niamh Gleason (12), Ava Alleyne (eight), Ben Porter (six), and Niamh Creelnan (six) were not ranked competitively, but instead performed in front of judges and testers who provided feedback on their strengths to celebrate and areas to shore up in training.
Provincial competitive gymnasts Brayden Hatton-Fearnley (15), Addison Leary (14), and Zoe Lanterman (14) all performed routines in front of judges who ranked them according to their score, with the top eight receiving an official award.
Hatton-Fearnley placed first in double mini trampoline (DMT), trampoline, and tumbling categories; Leary placed fourth in DMT, trampoline, and eighth in tumbling; and Lanterman placed second, first, and fourth in those categories, respectively.
“Those athletes, the joy that we saw moving into competition again, seeing old friends from other clubs that they’ve competed with in the past, having the cheers – there's an excitement and a satisfaction that comes with that,” Atkin said. “It gives them a sense of what they’re capable of and that it’s okay to go out and risk yourself in terms of being seen.
“All of them succeeded and were cheered, or failed and made mistakes and were cheered, and those experiences bring a sense of resilience that I think is really important.”
According to Atkins, having competitions taken away during the pandemic brought into focus and clarified how important competing is for the athletes. He added the best part of the last competition was a sense of excitement felt returning to the mat competitively once again.
“There were judges grinning from ear to ear. You think of judges being kind of serious, but everyone, people in the stands watching kids on the floor, coaches, you name it, were just loving that feeling of being together,” he said. “Training is awesome. It’s fun, but it’s also exciting to be able to say, “Ok, [let me] tie up my hair and get out and show what I’ve been up to.’
“There’s nothing like having something taken away for a significant period of time to really appreciate what a difference it was making.”
Atkins added gymnastics is a sport in which athletes train 20 times as much as they compete.
“In a sport like gymnastics, it’s quite common to only have six to eight competitions in a year,” he said. “But they’re really important, and they make the athletes feel they have a reason for doing what they’re doing and an excitement to bring back to training for the next event.”
He added the upcoming competition in March will be “totally different” from the previous meet and will include women’s artistic athletes from all over Alberta who will compete across two days.
The same weekend, the Edge’s competitive T&T team attends a competition in Red Deer.
“It’ll be a busy weekend for us because as club manager, I’m obviously part of helping to organize [the upcoming] competition,” he said. “And at the same time, myself, two of my staff and our competitive team will be in Red Deer.
“We'll all have lots to catch up on when we get back.”
The event will go all day from approximately 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and will include three four-hour sessions where athletes will compete and receive their awards. After 12 hours of competition, the following day will close at approximately 2 p.m., with higher-level athletes taking to the mat.
Atkins added the club will boast five to six local competitors over the duration of the competition. Members of the public are welcome to attend the competition at Genesis Place in Airdrie, but Atkin added excited parents of the competitors will likely fill their 100-person capacity.
“Only recently COVID restrictions have retracted to the point we could have spectators,” he said. “We were concerned that we were going to be hosting a competition with not even the parents, just the kids.
“So, we were really excited that we can invite those people in to see their kids and to enjoy that.”
