A pair of Kelowna gymnasts gained some valuable national experience at the Canadian Stream Cup competition last weekend in Montreal.
Okanagan Gymnastics Centre teammates Gabriela Beselt and Lucia Jakab, both age 10, competed for Team B.C. for the first time, and were accompanied on the trip by coach Sergei Chelest.
The girls are in a national development program called National Pre-Novice Elite. This is a designed to help gear some of Canada’s youngest athletes to the High Performance and International scene.
British Columbia has a decently strong contingent of Pre-Novice athletes, however, there are not many from the rest of Western Canada. It was important for these young ladies to see what else the country has to offer and how strong the teams from the east are.
The girls competed the first day of competition which was the team final and also preliminaries for qualifying to event finals. Team B.C. came away with a third medal place overall on Saturday.
Gabriela Beselt qualified to compete on floor and beam and vault finals.
Lucia had a great score of 15.1 on floor was in top three in that event. She qualified to the floor and vault finals. t event. She will compete in floor and vault.
Samantha Fourchalk, the other member of Team B.C., made it to finals in beam and vault.
Sunday was day two of the competition where the girls started on vault. Gabriela came away with a great score of 15.25 and a third-place showing, while Lucia came fourth. Then at beam, Gabriela was sixth facing tough competition from Quebec and Ontario. Lucia started the entire group of pre-novice competitors and earned an unbeatable 15.15, until the last girl. Lucia settled for a well deserved second-place. Gabriela earned a 14.70 and finished in a close fourth place.
