By James Bowler

Two Prince Albert gymnasts first to compete in Summer Games

Jul 6, 2015 | 7:23 AM

Two young ladies from Prince Albert are making waves in the world of gymnastics.

Hayden Gratias, 16, and 13-year-old Serra Gillis are headed to Fort McMurray to compete in the Western Canada Summer Games.

Their coach, Mike Amouri, said he is very proud of what the girls have accomplished.

“When I first moved here the kids showed promise, but nobody was at a level where they were being selected to represent Saskatchewan in any capacity, in the women’s artistic program,” said Amouri.

“So after five years to have kids on Team Saskatchewan attending such events as Western Canada Summer Games, trialing for Canada Winter Games, and attending Canadian championships and going to international events like Gymnix, well that’s amazing.”

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 Gratias said for her, it’s taken a lot of training and focus to get herself to this level of expertise.

“[It takes] a lot of training throughout the years and this last year I’ve trained a lot harder and a lot more hours and a lot bigger competitions to get to this point,” said Gratias. “I’ve been to National Stream Cup, Westerns, and I went to Nationals this year for the first time, so doing those bigger competitions will help me for the summer games.”

Gillis said that Amouri will spend time putting them through false competitions to test their response and focus before heading into the real thing.

“[We do] lots of visualizing and fake-ish competitions, like Mike will judge us,” said Gillis. “You have to focus really hard, especially when you’re tired, you have to focus even more.”

And focus is a major part of completing successful routines in these competitions, which Amouri takes very seriously.

“They get mental training and sports-science training throughout the year, on mental training and on goal-setting and on emotional control and intentional focus and things like that,” said Amouri. “And also laying out the expectations of what a high-performance or elite national gymnast trains.”

Amouri said when the girls are practicing their routines he will stop all other athletes in the gym and have them watch the girls, in order to simulate the feel of a large crowd watching their routine.

The girls are also put through rigorous training schedules of up to 19 hours a week of constant practice.

Looking ahead, both girls are very excited to compete in a national-level event like the Summer Games.

“[Looking forward to] meeting a lot more people and seeing what their lifestyle is like,” said Gratias. “And just competing with the team and being together in that environment.”

The Western Summer Games will run from August 7 to the 16 in Fort McMurray, Alberta, with Artistic Gymnastics running from August 9 to 11.

jbowler@panow.com

On Twitter: @journalistjim