Okanagan Gymnasts Airborne

The Okanagan Gymnastics artistic gymnastics team has been airborne this past month with trips to Edmonton, Halifax and San Diego. They have represented across North America.

A team of eleven athletes travelled to Edmonton, AB with their coaches Heather Ivanitz and Jesse Jakins in January for an early season competition that was meant to begin to prepare the athletes for the upcoming season.

Kimberly Stadtmueller led the pack in Level 8 winning the all around, finishing in first place on balance beam and floor exercise and finishing in second place on vault and the uneven bars. Emily Mackay earned a gold medal on the uneven bars, a silver on the floor exercise, a bronze on the vault and a silver all around. Braelyn Dillon earned a gold medal on the vault, a bronze on the uneven bars and balance beam.

In the JO 9 category, Vanessa Bulcock finished with a silver medal on the floor exercise and a bronze all around. In JO 10, Jenna Mick earned a bronze on balance beam and a gold medal on the floor exercise.

Four athletes and their coach Sergei Chelest travelled to Halifax to compete at Elite Canada. Lucia Jakab competed in the High Performance Junior category where she qualified for vault finals and finished in 4th place. Kamryn Greenhalgh, Amanda Jaggard and Kyleigh Crawford competed in the High Performance Novice category. This was the first trip to Elite Canada for these three young ladies. Greenhalgh qualified to the second day of competition after placing in the top 36 on the first day.

Ten athletes and coaches Ivanitz and Jakins spent some time in sunny Southern California at the SCEGACalifornia Classic. This competition hosted 1350 athletes from across the USA. Okanagan Gymnastics was the only Canadian team at the meet.

Vanessa Bulcock earned a silver medal on the balance beam in the JO 9 category. Jenna Mick earned a bronze medal on the floor exercise in the same category. In the JO 8 category, Kimberly Stadtmueller earned a bronze medal on the floor exercise and finished fifth place overall. Grace Driver earned fourth place on the vault and finished sixth overall. Mackenzie Carroll earned a fifth place on the uneven bars, while Danica Graves earned a seventh place on the vault.