Presley Kitamura, 12, won Quesnel Technics Gymnastics Club’s (QTGC’s) first gold medal at the 2018 BC Provincial Championships.
Eleven athletes from the team competed in the three-day Junior Olympic (JO) event in Port Coquitlam from April 6-8.
Kitamura, competing in JO level 7, won gold for her overall score in uneven bars, balance beam, floor routine and vault.
“I didn’t make B.C. Winter Games and it kind of made me more motivated to do more conditioning, to get stronger and do well in provincials,” she says.
In addition to the overall medal, she also won gold in beam and silver for her bars routines.
Kitamura has been competing for six years now and says her parents put her in a gymnastics class as soon as she could walk.
The 12-year-old says she hopes to develop her skills to compete at level 8 soon.
Although Kitamura may have shone brightest, her teammates also fared well.
“A lot of them placed really high and the ones who didn’t, still did their personal bests for the whole year,” says Christine Kline, an athlete/coach with the club who was competing in her last JO event while coaching her first.
“I’m really proud of the girls for working so hard because this year we’ve had a lot of changes with moving gyms.
“Now we have a much smaller gym since we moved from the Maple Drive building, which is quite a lot bigger.”
Taylor O’Flynn, a fellow coach who was also coaching at the provincials for the first time, jokingly elaborates.
“We don’t even have near a full vault runway, so all the other girls are running from all the way down and our girls are [running from] halfway because they’re so used to having nothing to run from.”
Results – day 1
Presley Kitamura won a gold on beam, silver on bars, placed seventh on vault and won the overall gold for JO level 7.
Sienna Gryschuk, QTGC’s youngest level 6 athlete, placed sixth on beam, eighth on vault and ninth overall.
Seaura Stewart, level 6, placed 12th on beam and 15th overall.
Xaria Jourdain, level 6, placed 14th on beam and 16th overall.
Hannah Brown, level 6, placed sixth on beam, seventh on vault and 14th overall.
Rachel Ganes, level 7, placed 10th on vault and 14th overall.
Christine Kline, level 7, placed sixth on beam, sixth on floor and 11th overall.
Results – day 2
Bianca Thompson, level 7, placed fourth on beam, 10th on bars and 12th overall.
Courtney Kitamura, level 7, placed 11th on vault, 12th on bars and 13th overall.
Results – day 3
Jessica Higgins, QTGC’s highest level athlete at JO 9, placed fourth on bars, ninth on both beam and floor and fifth overall.
Geillan MacEwan, QTGC’s only Aspire level athlete, placed 17th on beam, 21st on both vault and floor and 22nd overall.
