By Nathan Kanter

Two Battlefords gymnasts impress at provincials

May 24, 2017 | 5:00 PM

Two Battleford Gymnastics Club members competed extremely well at provincials in Saskatoon on May 13, as Hailey Dyck finished second overall in the Junior Olympic level four women’s artistic for athletes born 2004 and before, and Kyra Kolenosky finished fifth overall in the same discipline.

In addition to those placings in the all-around, Dyck won gold in the beam routine and silver in the floor routine, while Kolenosky won silver in the vault and bronze in the floor routine.

Given that it was the first time competing on such a big stage for both athletes, BGC head coach Danielle Clark said Dyck and Kolenosky exceeded her expectations.

“They definitely did an amazing job trying to downplay those nerves and just have a fun experience as their first time at provincials,” Clark said. “So we weren’t expecting them to necessarily medal in the all-arounds and we weren’t expecting them to do as well as they did.”

In artistic gymnastics, athletes go through the beams, bars, and floor routine once and then they get two cracks at the vault, where only the highest score is taken.

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The scores of the four events, each out of 10, are then totalled up.

Dyck’s score of 34.3 was the second highest overall, while Kolenosky’s score of 33.5 was fifth. There were six total athletes competing in their division.

Both BGC members, along with first-place finisher Brooke Cuthbert, were also the only athletes to hit a 9.0 or higher in any of the events. Dyck scored 9.05 in the floor, Kolenosky scored 9.1 in the vault, and Saskatoon’s Cuthbert scored over 9.0 in both vault and floor.

“I think this year with such an amazing performance, we’re definitely ready for them to move up to the [Junior Olympic] level six next year,” Clark said. “They have actually not been competing at a high level for very long. [Dyck] did JO-3 for two or three years and [Kolenosly] only competed for I think one year previously.”

At provincials, the Junior Olympic level goes up to 10, and there are also ‘high performance’ divisions.

Clark also added that even qualifying for provincials is a feat in itself, particularly for their age group.

“They generally train on the bars less [often], so they have a hard time as they get older utilizing the same strength on bars as the little gymnasts do,” she said.

The 2018 provincials will be in Prince Albert next year.

nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca

@NathanKanter11