Seven female members of the Okanagan Gymnastics Centre have qualified for the B.C. Winter Games thanks to their performances at an artistic gymnastics trial event held in Kelowna on Jan. 9 and 10.
Jillian Beaudreau, Grace Driver, Grace Akurienne, Camille Phillips, Kenedi Woodcox, Kayleigh Nicolson, and Mackenzie Carroll will be representing Zone 2 next month in Penticton. Coaches Heather Ivanitz and Jesse Jakins will be travelling with the team.
The men’s artistic athletes attended their trial event prior to Christmas where Oliver Eisele, Brady Clegg, Willis Plant and Jack Nyrose qualified for the zone 2 team. These athletes will be accompanied by their coach Jon Mason.
The Okanagan Gymnastics Centre also hosted the Cobweb Invitational with record number of participants, sitting at 175. In previous years, the competition has never hosted more than 100 participants.
Top four finishers were:
• JO 3, 2008 category—Olive Fenske (first overall), Junelle Sabang, Izabelle Coetzee, Elisa Shoen and Talia Westwood.
• JO 3, 2007—Haylee VanSteinburg, Eva Solano and Summer Houston.
• JO 4, 2006-2007 category—Teagan Murray (first overall), Ava Gray, Taylor Morrison, Piper Campo and Jaelyn Spavor.
• JO 4, 2005—Kate Levinsen and Kahlia Kadziolka.
• JO 5—Miah Denis, Natalia Simeunovic , Thea Elma and Sydney Ortynski.
• JO 6, 2005—Naomi Schraeder and Hailey Pritchard.
• JO 6, 200—Hayley Zandee
• JO 7 2003-2005—Kenedi Woodcox (first overall), Kayleigh Nicolson, Mackenzie Carroll and Taylor Bowden.
• JO 7, 2000-2002—Emily Mackay (first overall) and Danica Graves.
• JO 8—Jillian Beaudreau (first overall), Grace Driver, Grace Akurienne, Camille Phillips and Braelyn Dillon.
• JO 9—Jenna Mick (first overall), Vanessa Bulcock and Kamryn Greenhalgh.
• Aspire 2 category—Amanda Jaggard (first overall), Kyleigh Crawford and Samantha Pelletier.
Okanagan Gymnastics Centre also hosted the Interclub Performance Plus category where the athletes show their routines and earn a gold, silver or bronze ribbon depending on their scores. A gold is for a routine that scores 9.0-10.0, a silver is 7.0-8.99 and a bronze is less than 7.0.
Each athlete performs on all four women’s events and earns an all around medal depending on their final score.
Athletes earning a gold overall were Jordan Hilverda, Katjana Geismayr, and Jordan Carson.
Silvers were won by Jocelyn Stone, Ava Schraeder, Kaisha Knox, Shiphra Penner, Olivia Thonpson, Seija Bishop, Macy Eburne and Caiya Taylor-Ainslie.
