The competitive contingent of the Polarettes gymnastics club is in a rebuilding year.

Five of the program's senior members retired – at 15 or 16 years old – from competitive gymnastics at the end of last season.

Corey Baxter, Foreste Martin, Kelcie Henny, Anna Rivard and Andrew Crist will now take on roles of mentors to the young Polarettes, particularly those vying for spots on the 2012 Arctic Winter Games gymnastics team.

Polarettes coach Catherine O'Donovan said that typically when club members reach a certain age their focus is drawn elsewhere, such as trying out for high school sports and studies.

"We watched out top four girls retire this year,” O'Donovan said. "They've turned into coaching staff for us now. So we're kind of in a rebuilding phase.

"We're going to try to start looking at building our pre-competitive group from the ground up and start building our competitive program again, which we see happen a lot in communities like this. Once you lose a few you lose your whole team when you're in the Yukon.

"We don't have a huge population base, so if we lose one, then the friends kind of go with them.”

The up-and-coming gymnasts looking to take one of the four spots open for the Arctic Winter Games team are Fayne O'Donovan, Caitlyn Venasse and Reena Coyne, Catherine O'Donovan said.

"So we're starting with the young promising ones we've got and we're going to work on them,” she said.

"Those are some of the girls we're prepping for the Arctic Winter Games this year.”

The Polarettes competitive ages range from six to 16. This year, however, the competitive gymnasts will range from six to 13 years of age.

The age for the competitive program has no limit, O'Donovan explained. One

Polarette took her talent to compete at university in the U.S., for instance.

But having young coaches working with even younger athletes has a positive impact, O'Donovan said.

"We really like watching the athletes become coaches, because they stay involved in the sport, they know the sport, they already have a love for it.

"It's a hard profession to take up without that gymnastics background; it would take a long time to learn all the skills that the gymnasts just learn as they grow up in the sport.”

While many coaches would like to jump into the competitive side of the sport, O'Donovan and Polarettes coach Jenn Ryan will take the reigns for the Arctic Winter Games team.

She added that coaching competitively is easy compared to working with the young gymnasts.

"We like to keep them there for a while, let them build up there skills, let them learn how to keep kids' attention, learn to respect sport and respect kids before we let them move onto the higher levels,” O'Donovan said of the five young coaches working with the beginners.

Like many sports gearing up for the winter season, gymnasts are excited with the prospect of competing in front of a home crowd when the Arctic Winter Games are held in Whitehorse from March 4-10.

O'Donovan competed in the Arctic Games the last time the event was held in Whitehorse 12 years ago.

She competed in Arctic Sports, she noted, not gymnastics.

"That was 12 years ago, and my daughter, Fayne, at the time, was seven months old, and now she'll be competing at the Arctics in Whitehorse 12 years later,” O'Donovan said. "I find that really neat.

"I'm excited for our club, that we get to bring some attention to the club; I'm excited that all the kids' friends and family can finally get to see them compete at a high level, because usually they go Outside at competitions and nobody really gets to see them at their best.”

Typically, five regions compete in gymnastics: Yukon, Northwest Territories, Alaska, Nunavut and Alberta.

The age group for gymnastics at the Arctic Games is U17. The average group for the Yukon gymnasts will be U13, O'Donovan pointed out.

The Polarettes will start their competitive program on Tuesday. Registration for recreational program will take place Sept. 10.