Silhouettes gymnastics developing program

Times Reporter 

 

The Strathmore Silhouettes gymnastics team is getting back on track, in hopes of being provincial bound by the time competition starts next January.

“I have 17 girls that range from ages six to 16. The pre-competitive are from age six to eight and the competitive are nine and up,” said Tara Smith, Silhouettes head coach.

“I started last September with seven competitive girls, as a lot of my older girls have moved on to other sports, or decided it was too difficult to do three days of training because of school.” 

The training sessions for the pre-competitive are two nights a week for four hours. For the competitive athletes, the practices run three days, for 12 hours total.

Starting next year, pre-competitive and competitive will be training often on the same days, which will prove beneficial as the older group can provide some mentorship to the younger ones. 

“The pre-competitive group will be training Sundays and Tuesdays with Kassie, my sixteen-year-old competitive athlete, and I will coach  the competitive on the same night so that they can mentor the younger group,” said Smith.

After losing the older girls to other activities, Smith made the decision to hold tryouts to develop and grow a team. 

“I decided to hold tryouts and our team went from seven members to 17 members. Right now I have seven pre-competitive members and 10 competitive,” said Smith.

The goal for the team is to train as hard as possible for competitions throughout the year; as the younger group will do three competitions and the older girls will do upwards of 10 a year.

“It is all provincial at this point and we have gone to one out of province. They start at the end of January and go until May,” said Smith.

“The biggest event in my mind is southern zones and there they can qualify for provincials.”

The Silhouettes consistently had athletes in provincial competitions. 

“Until last year, I consistently had a couple of girls in provincials each year; because I had such a small group last year, I only had a couple of girls at the provincial 2 level,” said Smith.

“We are starting to grow slowly but surely and have to start back at square one with baby steps and grow the program again.”

The tryout process starts with sessions to see if the girls can last in a fitness sport such as gymnastics and test their flexibility.

“They will usually come and do a training night with me. I can see then if they will last for four hours and how the girls fit in with the group, and look for things like natural strength and flexibility,” said Smith.

Spots for both groups are essentially full, but Smith may open one spot to fill in the pre-competitive category to bring the number to eight.