Chiarelli can vault Canada to London Olympics

Talia Chiarelli in not your average 16-year-old, and being on the cusp of an Olympic appearance is only the start.

 
Drive, discipline, and being wise beyond her years, are all required traits for the Canadian women’s artistic gymnastics team member who is in London, England for a Wednesday, Jan. 11 meet that will determine the final four qualifying teams for the 2012 Olympic Games.

“I’m really excited. I really just want to make it as a team,” Chiarelli said during the national team’s selection camp in Gatineau days prior to leaving for the competition.

Achieving an Olympic berth would be a crowning moment in what has already been a tremendously successful gymnastics career.

This past year, Chiarelli placed sixth all-around at the 2011 Canadian Championships in Charlottetown, PEI, then traveling to Tokyo, Japan with Team Canada and then winning a team silver medal at October’s Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico.

“It was really fun because it was all different sports,” Chiarelli said of the Pan Am Games. “Going to closing ceremonies, there were so many people watching and you got to meet a lot of new people.”
Nepean-bred talent
Chiarelli’s love for sports started at an early age, when she was involved in a variety of different activities. While also excelling at soccer, Chiarelli admits she had a natural advantage when it came to gymnastics.

“My mom [Alicia Brancato – daughter of former Ottawa Roughriders coach George Brancato] used to be a gymnast so it was kind of in the family,” she explained.
Chiarelli started practicing with the Nepean Corona club when she was really little – participating in “mommy and me classes” as a toddler – and continued with the club until the age of 11, when her family relocated to Boston when her father, Peter, became general manager of the Boston Bruins.
Reaching for the elite level
While gymnastics was always a major part of her childhood, it was in 2009 at the U.S. nationals that Chiarelli realized just how badly she wanted to reach the next level of competition.

“That was the first really big meet I went to,” she recalled. “And it made me want to do it more because everyone there was so good.”

But moving onto the international stage has been no walk in the park. Chiarelli endures four-hour training sessions, six days a week.

“I’ve had to sacrifice a little bit of my social life,” Chiarelli noted. “I try to see my friends as much as possible, but there’s always something that I can’t go to because I have gym or I’m away.”

One thing Chiarelli won’t sacrifice is her education. In fact, the only aspect Chiarelli doesn’t enjoy about elite gymnastics is missing school.

“We went to Japan and Mexico in the fall and cumulatively, I was missing a month of school,” she remembered. “So it’s been really hard to catch up, doing the work that I missed in October, and the work that’s being assigned right now.”

The big piece of work in front of her at the moment, however, is securing one of the four Olympic positions also available to Italy, France, Spain, Netherlands, Brazil, Korea and Belarus.

David Brubaker, Chiarelli’s Sarnia-based coach who trains her when she’s in Canada, believes Chiarelli’s performance on vault will be an integral part of Canada’s success.

“Vault is one of those events where, if you do a higher difficulty, you can drastically help increase the team’s total,” he noted. “[Chiarelli’s] vault – euchan quo double twist – has a very high start value.”

Knowing the team is relying on her for a strong performance, Chiarelli isn’t rattled by the pressure. She says she doesn’t typically get nervous when she’s called up to compete, but maintaining focus is key.

“I just kind of stand at the end of the runway and stare at the vault,” explained Chiarelli, who hopes to compete in college gymnastics down the road, although there’s no question what her main goal is at the moment. “I’m not so focused that I can’t hear anything, but I’m pretty focused.”
One tough cookie
While Chiarelli has been fortunate enough to steer clear of injuries throughout her career, like most gymnasts, she has her share of battle wounds.

“I have little aches and pains everywhere and my wrists get really bad from doing bars,” she noted.

Her attitude is nonchalant when she points to the two wounds on her left wrist and describes how she had to get an IV after picking up a skin infection from an apparatus.

But Chiarelli has no time to worry about these minor details.

She’s preparing for what Brubaker says, “is one of the pinnacles of her career.”
“Having the ability to help us achieve a qualifying spot for Olympics will also put her in line to compete in the Olympics in the summer,” he highlighted.
Future goals
In addition to her international success, Chiarelli hopes to take her gymnastics to the varsity level.

Like many physically demanding sports, elite gymnastics careers are typically short-lived, and Chiarelli expects eventually she’ll branch out and put her energy into something else.

“I think some kind of human science,” she said of her future plans. “So I guess it’s kind of connected to gymnastics – it will probably always be part of my life.”

But for now, Chiarelli is looking no further than the Olympic qualifiers, which start on Jan. 10.