Gymnastics Canada – OSHAWA, ON (July 15, 2017) – Rosie MacLennan of Toronto, ON successfully defended her senior women’s trampoline title at the 2017 Canadian Championships in Trampoline Gymnastics at Durham College in Oshawa, ON on Saturday, while World Games-bound athletes Tamara O’Brien of Vancouver, BC and Jon Schwaiger of Ancaster, ON both set personal bests in double mini-trampoline (DMT) finals.
 
MacLennan, who hadn’t competed before this weekend since winning gold in Rio, put down a safe routine to take her sixth senior title, and will now look to add back more tricks as she builds towards the World Championships this November in Bulgaria.
 
“I kept it fairly simple for this weekend so I could try to get some scores and get some confidence getting back on the competitive field. Now I’ll just add more twists and more flips as I work back to my full routines,” said MacLennan. “My performance today was a little rough – I travelled a little bit more and got stuck in one of my skills but I’m happy to have put down three full routines and now I’m excited to get back in the gym and keep training for the next competition.”
 
Samantha Smith of Toronto, ON finished in second with 156.170 points, and Sophiane Méthot of La Prairie, QC took bronze with 155.280.
 
Jake Cranham of Ontario took the title of Canadian champion in the men’s senior trampoline finals with a score of 159.780. Kyle Soehn of Red Deer, AB took silver with 156.220, and Andrew Martin of BC took bronze with 152.070. All three athletes shared the podium with visiting Australian athletes who laid down the top scores.
 
“This is probably the first successful competition I’ve had in a good six years so it’s pretty exciting,” said Cranham who trains out of Skyriders Trampoline Place in Richmond Hill. “I didn’t necessarily compete as well as in training, so I’m just going to work at bringing the competition level up to the training level so this was a good benchmark for that.”
 
In DMT action, O’Brien laid down two brand new passes to take the Canadian senior women’s title, setting a personal best score in the process: “I’m very pleased with my performance and very pleased with the results and I have a personal best score, so it couldn’t have gone better. This gives me a lot of confidence (leading into World Games). These are the passes I’m planning on doing at World Games if I were to make finals, so being able to know that I competed them successfully before gives me a lot of confidence so I’m excited.”
 
O’Brien’s score of 71.600 was well ahead of second place Beatrice Prcic of Alberta with 65.800, and third place Karine Dufour of Quebec with 57.100.
 
Schwaiger, who has also qualified for senior finals in tumbling on Sunday, scored 38.200 on his second pass in the men’s senior DMT finals, the highest single score of the competition, and his highest score on a single pass in his career.
 
“My last pass I had nothing to lose after putting my hands down on the first pass so I went for the bigger one and I hit the box, one step, the best I’ve ever done it, the highest score on a single pass I’ve ever done. I’ll take that as a win heading into World Games next weekend because that’s my plan for finals, so it’ll make me competitive with the Russians.”
 
With the touch on his first pass, Schwaiger ended the competition in 5^th overall – while Alberta-based athletes swept the podium: Mark Armstrong took gold, Ryan Sheehan silver, and Callum Sundquist the bronze.  
 
Stephan Duchesne, High Performance Director for trampoline gymnastics at Gymnastics Canada was pleased with the increased depth of field at the championships: “The results today show that there’s a lot of new provinces that have national champions – New Brunswick for the first time, Manitoba for the first time. This is very good for us. It shows that we’re starting to grow and that we’re going in the right direction.”
 
Competition wraps up tomorrow with tumbling and synchronized trampoline finals in the morning, and team finals in the afternoon. All the action will be streamed live on http://gymcan.tv
 
For complete results, visit: http://www.issmembership.com/trampoline/live/schedule.aspx
 
ABOUT GYMNASTICS CANADA
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