USA Gymnastics National Team Starts Four-year Training Cycle

Due to a scheduling error at the USA Gymnastics National Team’s normal training site at Karolyi Ranch in Huntsville, Texas, the team ended up practicing and holding their first post-Olympic camp at Midwest Training and Ice Center over the weekend.

The national team’s quadrennial began last Thursday. Quadrennial is a four-year training cycle done in preparation for the 2020 Olympic Games. The members from the Trampoline and Tumbling Senior National Team, Senior National Development Team, and Junior National Team were all training together, and among them were 2016 Olympic trampolinists Logan Dooley and Nicole Ahsinger.

Before they were Olympians, the two trampolinists went through hard times like everyone else. Ahsinger was beaten by teammate Shalyee Dunavin in the USA Gymnastics Championships and she was afraid that she wouldn’t make it into the 2016 Olympics team. As luck would have it, Ahsinger garnered two Olympic selection points from the 2016 Elite Challenge and this helped push her score over Dunavin’s to claim a spot on the Olympic team.

Ahsinger was recorded to be saying that she watched the scores go up and thought to herself that she might have just done it, and when she told her mother, the older woman started crying. This selection into the 2016 Olympics made her the only female US Olympic trampoline athlete, and together with teammate Dooley they are the only two US Olympic trampoline athletes in Rio.

Logan Dooley also came from behind. He used to be an alternate for the 2008 and 2012 Olympic teams before he was the only male US trampoline athlete in Rio. Unluckily, he placed 11th in the qualification round and did not reach the finals. However, Dooley had the best Olympic finish in Team USA’s history for a male trampoline athlete. This motivates him to return to the 2020 Olympics by training harder.

Last Thursday’s camp is the beginning of a four-day program including newcomers and elitists. According to Catherine Cabral-Marotta, High Performance Director of the USA Gymnastics Trampoline and Tumbling Program, the theme of the four-day camp was foundations because wherever an athlete’s skillset lies, the basics still have to be studied.

“The idea that we want to achieve at this camp is a lot of mental performance and goal setting,” Cabral-Marotta said.

In a performance sport like gymnastics, athletes learn to only compete with themselves and are taught to train their hardest and outdo themselves every year. These are some of the first lessons taught at camp.

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Great Britain Showcases a Strong Start in Odense

Great Britain demonstrated a strong start on the first day of the 2015 World Trampoline Gymnastics, Tumbling and Double-Mini Trampoline Championships in Odense, Denmark, making six finals and four semi-finals on both the trampoline and tumbling disciplines.

For the trampoline gymnasts, this competition will serve as the qualifying event for the Summer Olympic Games in Rio next year, wherein the top eight finalists will automatically secure an Olympic place and the rest of the top 24 semi-finalist will get a second chance and proceed at the Olympic test event in Rio next year. Great Britain has achieved two spots in the women’s individual semi-final and one spot in the men’s event, which means the country, at the very least, have successfully secured three spots in the test event next year.

In the women’s event, it was Pamela Clark, a member of the gold-medal-winning team at the 2014 Trampoline European Championships, who secured the highest rank for Great Britain, after finishing sixth place. The British gymnast showed no signs of nervousness and remained calm throughout her performances, and she executed two remarkable routines which earned her a total score of 101.135. 

Three-consecutive British champion Bryony Page also displayed a great performance at the qualifying rounds, she executed two clean routines to secure the 10th place after obtaining a total score of 100.715. Kat Driscoll, 2012 Olympian Kat Driscoll carried a very confident aura in her 8th World championship appearance to finish 12th with a total score of 100.440. 

Amanda Parker also remained calm all throughout her performance to finish with a total score of 98.200. However, even though she managed to make it to the top 24, she won’t be able to make it on the individual semi-finals since only three gymnasts per country can qualify. The British women’s team also finished second ahead of Russia in the team event finals.

Pamela was very delighted with the performances of her teammates, “I’m really happy, it was a little bit unexpected, but I think the work not only from me but the team and the coaches and support staff too has obviously paid off, not just for me but with all the other girls. I’m just going into the semi-finals with a clear head and then it’s just another competition again. Hopefully I will do another good performance and see where that takes me.”

Additionally, Bryony stated: “I think I’m more relieved than anything, my routines were a bit shaky because I was quite nervous but overall I’m really happy because when I was in the moment I felt strong.”

Kat was also very pleased with the results but she hopes for a much better performance in the semi-finals. “I’m obviously pleased but I know I’ve got improvements to make, which hopefully we can do come semi-finals. We have got team finals tomorrow, so we can use that as a kind of rehearsal as it’s a zero final and one voluntary routine, the same as the semi-final, and the see where we go from there.”

In the qualification rounds of the men’s trampoline event, Nathan Bailey secured the top spot for Great Britain after finishing 14th with his two remarkable performances which earned him a total score of 105.480. His 14th place finish earned Great Britain men’s team a sure spot in the test event next year, still with a possibility of making it to the finals and secure an Olympic place. This was a very remarkable finish for the GB men’s team as there were no male participants in the previous Olympics.

Nathan said after: “I’m so pleased, it was the goal coming into these championship to make that top 24. I’m in a really good position and I am really happy with my performance and looking forward for what’s to come over the next few days.”

The competition resumes today, 27th of November (Friday) with the trampoline team finals, the women’s tumbling team finals and the double-mini trampoline qualifications and women’s team final.

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Record Number of Gymnasts Registered to Compete for the 31st Trampoline Gymnastics World Championships in Odense

Record number of participants has registered to compete for the 31^st Trampoline Gymnastics world Championships. The said competition will be held in Odense on November 26-29.

More than 300 athletes from 41 different countries are ready to compete in the said competition, and everyone is aiming to capture one of the 14 World titles that can be obtained in four different categories (Trampoline, Synchronised Trampoline, Double-mini Trampoline and Tumbling.)

With 11 weeks to go before the start of the World Championships, the competition draw, which will determine the competition structure of the qualification rounds, has taken place at the FIG Headquarters in Lausanne on Wednesday. The said competition draw was held in the presence of the Odense Organising Committee. The draw is important for delegations, as it will assist them to tweak their competition strategies.

For the gymnasts that are competing for the Trampoline discipline, the World Championship in Odense will also serve as their stepping stone on their way to the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, with the first Olympic places in Trampoline to be attributed at the end of the competition. 

The record number of participants, 132 in the Individual Men’s competition and 87 in the Individual Women’s competition, shows a 30 percent upsurge in participation compared with last year’s Trampoline World Championships in Daytona Beach. 

The sudden increase in numbers signifies the flourishing appeal of the discipline, which made its Olympic debut in the year 2000.

This World Championships are also a significant event for gymnasts performing non-Olympic disciplines, as the championship is the sole qualifying competition for the 2017 World Games in Wroclaw.

As a host country, Denmark has claimed itself as the stronghold of Trampoline Gymnastics events. “After the 2001 World Championships, the 2008 European Championships and World Cups in 2011 and 2013, Odense will be welcoming the elite of the Trampoline world for the fifth time," the Presidents of the Danish Gymnastics Federation and the Worlds 2015 Organising Committee, Flemming Knudsen, stated.

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