Gymnastics Canada – OTTAWA, ON (May 25, 2019) – Sam Zakutney of Ottawa, ON used his hometown advantage to capture his first-ever senior all-around (AA) title on Saturday night during the 2019 Artistic Gymnastics Canadian Championships at the Carleton University Fieldhouse. Félix Dolci of Laval, QC took the junior men’s AA title.
 
Zakutney, who has spent the past year competing for Penn State as part of NCAA gymnastics, returned home this weekend to show his hometown fans the progress he’s made over the year – taking the gold medal with a total score of 83.400. He just edged last year’s AA winner, Rene Cournoyer of Repentigy, QC who captured silver with a total score of 83.000. Fellow NCAA competitor Justin Karstadt of Toronto, who just graduated from the University of Minnesota, took the bronze medal with a total score of 81.550.
 
“I’m proud of myself – It was so great to finally end the year off with a great all-around performance. All-around competitions haven’t been the smoothest for me this year, so to cap it off at the right time feels good,” said Zakutney who also had a big year in the NCAA, taking home the Big 10 team title with his Penn State teammates last month. “I definitely had the home advantage and it worked out. I came in focussed – I didn’t really focus on anyone else, and just did my job, and it paid off.”
 
Cournoyer came into the competition nursing a couple of injuries he sustained at the UCIC competition in Calgary in March, but still looked very strong as he qualified for all six apparatus finals on Sunday, as well as taking home the silver medal.
 
I’m coming back from injuries, so I was very happy with what I did,” said Cournoyer. “I had some easier routines, but I managed to do them very well so I had some good scores. I had a few too many mistakes to get the gold medal, but Sam had a great meet and he deserved it all the way.”
 
In the junior men’s competition earlier in the day, it was Dolci of Laval, QC who dominated the 16-17 year category – winning all-around gold with a total score of 82.250 after having top scores on four out of the six apparatus. Evgeny Siminiuc of Mississauga captured the silver medal with a total score of 78.300, while Nathan Yvars, also of Laval, took the bronze with a total score of 76.450.
 
“Today was really good. I did my best score ever so I’m really proud about that. Qualifying for the Junior Worlds is really important for me, but also scoring a really good score, and that’s what I did today, so I couldn’t ask for more,” said Dolci who will find out if he was successful in being named to the first-ever Junior Worlds team in the next week or so.
 
In the Junior 14-15 age category for the men, Trentin Milligan of Ontario took the gold with a total score of 68.500 while his Team Ontario teammate Xavier Olasz captured silver with a total score of 68.100. Nathan Broughton of Alberta took bronze with a total score of 65.800.
 
The novice women’s competition also wrapped up on Saturday and saw Alexis Wendland of Ontario take the gold with a strong lead over the silver medallist – Amy Jorgensen of Saskatchewan. Victorianne Charron of Quebec took the bronze.
 
The competition will wrap up tomorrow with apparatus finals for the junior, senior, and open men’s categories, as well as day two of competition in the junior and senior women’s categories. Ana Padurariu of Oshawa, ON is currently leading the senior women’s category over Ellie Black of Halifax, NS and Brooklyn Moors of Cambridge, ON. Action starts at 9:40am.
 
For full results, please visit: http://bit.ly/2019AGCDNS_results
 
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First established in 1969, Gymnastics Canada has been supporting the mastery of movement in Canada for five decades as the national governing body for the sport of gymnastics in Canada. We work closely with the twelve provincial federations and 700 local clubs to provide a broad range of programs and services to meet the needs of all participants. From athlete development, to coach and judge 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 experiences through the delivery of quality and safe gymnastics programming. Visit www.gymcan.org for more information, or follow us @gymcan1. From here, we soar.
 

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