Talk about being close friends.
Not only do three Okotoks athletes train at the same gymnastic club, share giggles and jokes, but they also finished 1, 2, and 3 in bars competition at the Alberta Artistic Gymnastics championships in Fort McMurray on April 17.
Bree Podesky, Kaitlyn Hogan and Megan Petrie, who live in the Okotoks area but compete for the Pegasus Gymnastics Club in Calgary, took the top three spots in the uneven bars in the JO 6 level at provincials.
For Podesky it also catapulted her into winning the overall title.
“My bars went very good it was the highest I had all year,” Podesky said. “I thought Kaitlyn and I should have tied for first, it was so close.”
Podesky started the competition by surprising herself with a first-place finish in the balance beam.
“I usually get really nervous on the beam — I lose focus and I get mad at myself,” she said.
Some positive visualization in the van to the competition helped calm her for provincials, she explained. It worked as she was the model of consistency in the remaining three events.
Podesky finished second in the floor thanks to some quick thinking. She had been training with a shorter music version from her planned routine. It was a longer version from her previous routine that played in Fort Mac.
“I had no idea, so I had to make up a little bit of my routine at the end (to fit the music),” she said.
She kept her calm in correcting a faux pas in warm-up to finish second in the vault. The springboard in front of the vault was too close for the taller Podesky.
“I missed the vault and the girls were laughing, it was funny,” she said with a giggle. “But it was just warm-up and my vault (a front hand-spring) went really well.”
That left just the bars, where Podesky passed her friend Hogan.
“I was in first-place in bars until the last person and that was Bree,” said Hogan, a student at Okotoks Junior High School. “She beat me by 0.016 — that’s like a pointed toe or something.
“I was kind of mad because I thought I had a pretty good routine, but I was happy for Bree.”
Petrie finished third in the bars. She had a stunning performance, but fell near the end of her routine.
“I was doing well on the bars until I fell,” said Petrie, a Grade 9 student at St. John Paul II Collegiate. “I was still pretty happy with my performance. I had a clean routine until I fell.”
She won a bronze medal on the floor.
“I showed up on my dance and I smiled a lot,” Petrie said. “I was happy with it.”
She finished just out of the medals with a fourth-place showing in the overall. Hogan finished sixth overall.
Two Okotoks sisters who also compete at Pegasus, Olivia and Amanda Keegan, finished 12th and 15th in respectively in the JO 9 level, one of the top categories at the provincials in Fort Mac. Amanda will compete for Team Alberta at the Western Canada championships in Richmond from May 5-7. Olivia is an alternate. To see the full results of the provincials go to abgym.ab.ca
