Tumblers in Training

Dublin-area gymnastics teams prepare for competition

AA DUBLIN BoYS’ gymnastics team is getting an opportunity to show off its skills and athleticism on a big stage next month.

Integrity Gymnastics, owned by threetime Olympian Blaine Wilson, is sending 16 competitors, ages 7 to 14, to the Arnold Sports Festival, where they’ll join about 4,000 youth gymnasts from across the nation to compete for top spots in the Arnold Gymnastics Challenge. The festival runs March 1-4.

The three teams – levels four, five and six – compete separately, and each participant performs in six events. Men’s gym- nastics events include floor, parallel bars and high bar.

Coach Nyika White says his team enjoys the Arnold as a large-scale event that happens in its own backyard – allowing team members to have classmates, friends and relatives come cheer them on and giving them a “home-field advantage.”

As the boys gear up for the challenge, they practice from seven and a half hours to 12 hours a week, depending on their level of competition.

Although the boys have been competing well, White says they must continue to reach for better. He believes they will be in “tip top shape” by March.

“There is always work and practice to be done in gymnastics,” White says. It can be “better, bigger, higher, longer, straighter.”

Because the coaches see the gymnasts sometimes more often than their families, they must act as major role models, instilling in them values such as excellence and perfection, White says. The lessons of gymnastics compare closely to life, teaching the importance of goal setting, self-image and self-worth, he says.

Integrity Gymnastics teaches its students to look at all competitions the same, with each being the one they have prepared their whole lives for, White says.

They must “get out and get the job done,” he says.

Tessa Dufresne is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at laurand@pub groupltd.com.