A pair of Yukon gymnasts beamed with pride following performances on the beam last week in Delta, B.C.
Emily King and Hailey Sherman both cracked the top-10 in the event at the 2016 Western Canadian Artistic Gymnastics Championship on May 5.
“The first day was getting the jitters out - it’s their first westerns ever. Hailey has moved up four levels in the matter of months, so she was a little overwhelmed by the sheer size of the competition,” said coach Kimberly Jones. “And Emily hasn’t competed in almost two years now because she is often out because of injury. For both of them it was a little bit of a rusty start, but they did awesome.”
Sherman placed fifth on beam, 13th on vault, 15th on bars and 16th on floor for 13th all-around.
King came eighth on beam and 18th on floor in the two events she competed in. Both were in the Junior Olympic 8 division.
“(King) had a broken hand so she couldn’t do vault or bars, but we were able to make her routines that didn’t use her hands on floor and beam,” said Jones.
Following the westerns, King and Sherman were joined by teammates from Whitehorse’s Polarettes Gymnastics Club for the 2016 Delta Invitational.
Competing in the same division as before, Sherman and King produced a rare tie, winning a pair of silver medals on the beam.
“It’s pretty rare. And it was pretty funny they tied each other,” said Jones. “That was a bit of a funny moment for the two of them.”
“It was pretty much all the same kids as on day one, they just had a better meet on day two,” she added.
Sherman also took sixth on vault, ninth on floor, for eighth all-around. King added a sixth place on floor.
Sasha Kozmen added a gold to the Polarettes’ medal count. She flew to gold on the vault with a front handspring in Junior Olympic (JO) 7.
“She stuck the landing on both of her vaults and it was really solid,” said Jones. “She was pretty pleased with that. The judges were happy with that.”
Kozmen also took eighth on beam, eighth on floor for 10th all-around.
Maude Molgat captured a fourth medal for Polarettes with a bronze on bars in JO6. She also notched seventh on floor en route to eighth all-around.
“Maude did a great bar routine,” said Jones. “Bars is an event we’re all working to improve on in the Yukon. But Maude is really solid on that; it’s definitely her best event.”
In the same division teammate Ella Paldy came fifth on bars and seventh all-around, and Ava Jampolsky fifth on vault and 11th all-around.
Polarette’s Anna Gishler placed eighth on bars and ninth on vault on her way to 11th all-around in JO6 Junior.
Lily Witten posted fifth on bars and beam to take eighth all-around in JO6 Child.
Whitehorse teammate Riley Boland finished fifth on vault and beam for 13th all-around in JO4 Child.
“I think the girls had a great meet and it was my first meet with a lot of the girls that went,” said Jones, who took over as head coach in February. “For Ava and Lily it was their first meet of the season and it was a really big meet. There are 1,800 kids competing over the weekend, so that’s the largest Canada has ever had.
“It was kind of an overwhelming environment for the girls. For everyone to come home with something was super exciting.”
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com