Members of the Polarettes Gymnastics Club returned to Whitehorse after a successful meet in Richmond B.C. Nine young gymnasts competed at the Delta Cash and Carry Invitational over the weekend, while two of those athletes also competed for Team Yukon at the Western Canadian Championships earlier in the week.

The Richmond Olympic Oval, which hosted speed skating during the 2010 Winter Olympics was reconfigured with gymnastics apparatuses for the Best of the West Gymnastics event.

Emily King and Hailey Sherman both represented Yukon at westerns for the first time ever.

Polarettes coach Kimberly Jones, who started with the club in January, said both girls were quite nervous going into the event, but gained a confidence boost.

“It was the first meet where they get that experience and exposure,” said Jones.

The girls competed against other athletes from B.C., Alberta, Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

“It’s such a good learning experience for them,” she said.

King, who broke her hand earlier this year, was only cleared to weight-bear in April. Jones said they designed routines for her where she could do moves that didn’t require that hand.

“It took some serious creativity to find skills that would make up full requirements with only one hand,” she said. “She [King] did really well with the routines.”

King only competed in beam and finished eighth.

Sherman, who was competing for the first time at a junior olympic 8 level performed in the all-around and beam events. She finished fifth on the beam.

“They’re incredibly hard working, the both of them,” said Jones.

“They’re both really artistic. They’re really elegant dancers and do clean gymnastics.”

Since Jones’ arrival at the beginning of the year from the Calgary Gymnastics Club, where she worked with the high performance program, the junior olympic 8 girls have an increased training volume.

They now train 21 hours a week; almost doubling their hours from December.

Friday and Saturday the Polarettes also competed at the Delta Cash and Carry Invitational. King and Sherman tied for second on the beam and Sasha Kozmen won gold in the junior 7 vault.

Also competing were Ella Paldy, Maude Molgat, Ava Jampolsky, Anna Gishler, Lily Witten and Riley Boland.

“This season we were hoping to get out there and learn how to compete,” said Jones. “The kids were super happy with that.”

The Polarettes are currently training for the June 11 Yukon Championships. About 40 gymnasts are entered and a team will travel from Juneau, Alaska to compete.

In the junior olympic 8 category, three Polarette girls will compete. King and Sherman will be joined by Bianca Berko-Malvasio. They will be working on upgrading the difficulty of their skills and becoming more consistent.

“It should be really fun,” said Jones. “They’ve still got a lot in their back pocket that they’re working on.”