By Dan Plouffe Their age may be low but the competition level will be high when Avery Rosales and Juliette Chapman compete at the National Stream Cup 2013 in Edmonton Jan. 24-27.
The nine-year-olds from Tumblers Gymnastics Centre earned the trip thanks to their 1-2 finish in the pre-novice aspire category at a December qualification event in Burlington, Ont.
“I never thought I was going to be like on Team Ontario when I was nine years old,” smiles Rosales, who’d been impressed when another Tumblers teammate previously got to do it at age 11 for the Eastern Canadian championships.
The National Stream Cup is a new competition that only began last year. With the younger athletes ineligible for the Canadian championships, it gives the pre-novice aspire-level athletes the chance to test themselves nationally.
The young Tumblers athletes spend 4-5 hours a day just about every day of the week training at the Orleans facility.
“It’s like another family for us here,” describes Chapman, a Grade 4 Alain-Fortin elementary school student. “I think I spend more time at gymnastics than I do at school.”
Thanks to their standout performances in Burlington – Rosales won gold on beam and floor to place first all-around, while Chapman took bars gold and finished second overall – the gymnast friends who met two years ago when they started in the competitive program will now get to share a trip to Edmonton.
“I’m pretty nervous because I’ve never been to a really, really big competition. But I’m really excited for it too,” Chapman remarks.