Ana Padurariu

Over a hundred gymnasts will make their first appearances of the season at this year’s Elite Canada, the qualifying meet for High Performance status, to be held in Gatineau next week.

Three of the five members of last year’s history-making world championships team are set to compete in Gatineau, with Ellie Black, Sophie Marois, and beam silver medalist Ana Padurariu all expected to contend, as well as alternate Laurie Denommée. With vault silver medalist Shallon Olsen currently competing in her freshman season at Alabama, we won’t see her back quite yet, though she is planning to return after the NCAA season is complete, while Brooklyn Moors will sit this competition out.

2018 Youth Olympic Games medalist Emma Spence will make her senior debut in Gatineau, 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medalists Jade Chrobok and Isabela Onyshko are on the roster (with Onyshko now competing with the Phoenix club in Vancouver), 2016 Olympian Rose-Kaying Woo and her sister Victoria-Kayen Woo are back in action, and Pac Rims team members Haley de Jong and Imogen Paterson will also compete, with Paterson making her senior debut, as will other former junior standouts Quinn Skrupa, Mia St-Pierre, Lucia Jakab, Kiera Wai, and Ilka Juk.

Notably missing from the senior field are Megan Roberts and Meaghan Ruttan, both of whom had long and illustrious elite careers in Canada before beginning their NCAA careers this year. Roberts is already beginning to shine at Georgia, while Ruttan is in the good company of several other former Canadian elites at Washington.

Zoé Allaire-Bourgie is pretty much so far ahead the junior competition, she’ll be competing in the senior field this year, helping her prepare for the road to Tokyo alongside the gymnasts she’ll be contending with next year. The 2018 junior national all-around, bars, and beam champion had a super successful season last year, and she’s expected to continue her dominance in her final year at the junior level. In addition to her wins at home, Allaire-Bourgie was the Gymnix all-around and beam champion, and she also won the beam titles at Pac Rims and Junior Pan Ams, taking the all-around bronze and silver medals at these competitions as well.

In the junior field, my favorites to keep an eye on are Rachael Riley and Kyra Cato, both of whom performed well as juniors last year, but should now be up there as two to watch alongside Allaire-Bourgie for international assignments. I also really love Okeri Katjivari and Leah Tindale, and I look forward to the junior debuts of last year’s novice standouts Rébéka Groulx, Scarlett Earl, Maya Zonneveld, Makenna Guidish, Kiora Peart-Williams, Clara Raposo, and Nyla Morabito, to name a few.

In the novice competition, I’m excited to see Alicia Wendland, who trains and competes with Paramount Elite in the U.S., currently in her first season as a level 10. Wendland attended several developmental camps in the U.S. elite program, but as a Canadian, has opted to go the elite route in her home country, competing with the Waterloo-based club Revolution.

Most of the novices are brand new to elite competition, but a few have some experience, including Jenna Lalonde, Tegan Shaver, and Amy Jorgensen, the three of whom were the strongest of this bunch at last year’s Elite Canada. The majority of novice gymnasts are in the 12-13 age group, but we’ll also see a few gymnasts getting early starts at age 10 and 11 as well.

Elite Canada will be held from February 1 through February 3 at the Centre Sportif de Gatineau, featuring two days of competition for each division. The seniors will have an all-around competition as well as a separate event finals, while the juniors and novice gymnasts will have two days of all-around competition, with apparatus winners determined after the second day.

The competition will be streamed by FloGymnastics, and a full list of athletes expected to attend is below.

Article by Lauren Hopkins