The Polarettes Gymnastics club continued to wrack-up the air miles, travelling again this weekend to Coquitlam for the 2019 Artistic Gymnastics BC Provincial Championships. The weekend previous the club sent seven gymnasts to Langley for the BC WAG JO Compulsory Championships.

For this trip, the Polarettes had five gymnasts competing in Junior Olympic (JO) levels six through eight.

In her tenure as head coach Kimberly Jones said it has been the most successful B.C. Championships the club has ever had.

Earning three medals was JO 6 gymnast Mackenzie Tonner. She won gold for her floor routine, bronze on bars, and gold in all-around, meaning she was the top scoring gymnast in her age category. Tonner placed no lower than fourth, finishing just outside the podium in the vault and beam events.

Jones said because Tonner was the first gymnast to compete they were unable to follow her scores, only learning she was the all-around winner when the award was announced.

“She was definitely having an amazing day,” said Jones. “But when there are eight kids going on each event so you don’t really know what your other competitors are doing all the time because you are so focused on the event you are on.

“She was first up in our rotation so her results would always come up first so it always looks like your in first place because no one else has got a score yet. We kind of stopped watching then at the end of the competition she was still in first place and we were like ‘oh my gosh, this is amazing.’”

For Tonner, it was her first B.C. Championships.

“This was her first B.C. Champs and it was a different tone,” said Jones. “A lot of the competitions we go to are pretty low key. When you go to B.C. Championships everyone wants to win bad. So it’s a little bit of a different energy in the gym.”

All of the clubs who participated in the Cchampionships sent their best gymnasts, making it a high level of competition.

“You have to be able to meet a minimum score in order to get into the competition,” said Jones.

“If you can’t, you don’t get to go. At the beginning of the season, Mackenzie just made the minimum score so that would have put her middle of the pack, bottom of the pack.

“To come first all-around over a three month period when she first started in this level is huge. Kenzie has been putting in a ton of extra time in the gym by choice.”

Adria Gallina, another JO 6 athlete, did not medal but she did place seventh overall, a very positive result.

“For Adria, this is her second JO 6 competition, her first one was Gymnix,” said Jones. “We saw her scores improve in the three weeks.”

Jones said experiencing Gymnix, a large meet held in Montreal, was good prep for Gallina heading into the B.C. Championships.

“Compared to Gymnix B.C. Champs seems like a smaller competition for the girls. Just because Gymnix is on this big stage and is kind of this production when you go. B.C. Champs isn’t quite like that.”

Maude Molgat, a newcomer to JO 8 only having two meets at that level including B.C. Championships, scored consistently through the four events, her scores hovered around 8.8 out of 10.

“It was a great start to JO 8,” said Jones. “JO 8, when you enter that level there is a whole new set up deductions the judges can take … It’s a lot harder to get a very good score in JO 8, 9, and 10.”

Sisters Lily Witten and Ava Jamplosky, both JO 7s, earned bronze medals in bars for their age categories. Witten was ninth overall and Jamplosky 10th.

Jones said overall the level of gymnastics over the weekend was very strong.

“For most of them this is the event we were trying to peak for,” said Jones. “I would say that happened.”

The Polarettes will be on the road again at the end of April to compete in the Western Canadian Championships.