Gymnastics Canada  – CALGARY, AB (May 5, 2017) – Day one of the 2017 Canada Cup Trampoline Gymnastics competition in Calgary, Alberta saw fantastic performances by Canadian athletes in the preliminary rounds as they battled for a spot in the finals.

The event is hosted by the Alberta Trampoline and Tumbling Sports Association in collaboration with Gymnastics Canada and Gymnastics Alberta, the event brings together 250 of Canada’s best national level and high performance junior and senior gymnasts who will challenge for the title of Canada Cup Champion in men’s and women’s individual and synchronized trampoline, tumbling, and double mini-trampoline. An internationally sanctioned event, national teams from Belarus, Sweden, and the United States are also competing.

Tamara O’Brien from Coquitlam, BC currently sits in fourth place overall in the Double Mini Trampoline (DMT) after the qualifying round. “Qualifications went pretty well today,” said O’Brien following competition. “I landed four routines on my feet so I’m really happy with my performance today. It’s really cool to have international athletes coming to compete against us. Some of these girls are the best in the world so it’s neat to see the skills they are performing and to compete with them is really awesome and a total honour.”

In the men’s trampoline preliminary round, it was the Belarusians who occupied the top two positions heading into Saturday’s final including 2016 Rio Olympic gold medalist Uladzislau Hancharou. Canada’s Kyle Soehn is currently sitting in third place and will also advance to the finals.

“Competition was a lot of fun today since we have the Olympic gold medalist as well competing in the event. It’s nice having an athlete of his calibre competing, it doesn’t get bigger than the Olympic champion!” said Soehn. “We compete against these guys a lot so it’s nice to see familiar faces but to also have the home turf advantage. Living so close in Red Deer, lots of family members have come up; it’s nice to have something so close since we don’t typically get competitions nearby.”

More than half the athletes competing this weekend are women, including Canadian Sophiane Méthot of La Prarie, QC, who is leading the trampoline competition heading into the final. “My routine felt really good today, I was really surprised by the score I had for my compulsory routine since it was much higher than I expected,” said Méthot. “My optional score was really good and my flight time was much better than training, so it was really a great competition for me today.”

Méthot has been training hard for this competition and will even debut some new moves during her final routine, “I’m going to try a harder routine for the finals tomorrow. I’m just expecting to do it as well as I can but it’s a new routine so we will see what happens and I hope it goes well. This is the first time I’ll perform it during an international competition.” 

Saturday’s finals include Junior and Senior’s Trampoline while Sunday will feature Junior and Senior’s Tumbling, Synchro Trampoline and Double Mini Trampoline finals.

For the full competition results, click here.

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First established in 1969, Gymnastics Canada is the national governing body for the sport of gymnastics in Canada. Gymnastics Canada works closely with the twelve Provincial Federations and the 700 local clubs to provide a broad range of programs and services to meet the needs of all participants. From athlete development, to coaching and judging education, Gymnastics Canada sets the operating standards and practices for the sport in Canada. Our mandate is to promote and provide positive and diverse gymnastics experience through the delivery of quality and safe gymnastics programming. Visit www.gymcan.org for more information, or follow us @CDNgymnastics

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For more information, contact:

Julie Forget
Director, Communications and Marketing
Gymnastics Canada 
Cell: 819.210.2064
Email: jforget@gymcan.org