Even based on her own lofty standards, the performance of Sudbury Laurels’ gymnast Avery Roy at the second qualifier of the season in Muskoka was impressive, to say the least. In capturing the overall aggregate title at Level 7 – 13 years old grouping, Roy posted a total score of 38.00 (out of 40), exceeding her goal of hitting high 36’s or so.
“Avery showed confidence and beautifully executed choreography and tumbling, huge vaults and the best bar routine of the season so far,” noted coach Julie McEwen of the 12 year old grade 7 student at Lasalle Secondary who swept all four gold medals in her category.
It was a significant bump from the first qualifier in Orangeville, pre-Christmas, especially on the beam, improving from a score of 8.2 to 9.4 on her second go around. “That’s probably going to be hard to beat, but that will be my goal for the next one,” said Roy, who is already eyeing a jump to Level 8 for the 2023-2024 campaign.
“I tried to think that I was just doing my routine here, not to think about the judges or anything, just focus on myself and the beam.”
If there is an event that most captures the spirit of the talented pre-teen, it would be the floor, yet another area was progress is being shown. “My back tumbles and front tumbles are definitely way higher,” said Roy. “And I have improved my choreo. My routine is really sassy; you present it more, work on it more.”
One of 12 GymZone Gymnastics’ competitors who were part of the Level 6/Level 7 brackets, Roy had plenty of local company on the podium. The youngest of the Sudbury gymnasts, Desiree Malmiste earned gold on beam and floor, silver on vault and bars, all while establishing a new personal best aggregate count of 36.825.
With a PB score of 9.00 on the vault, Brooke Bernstein walked away with gold to go along with a bronze medal on both beam and the aggregate. All four Level 6 – age 12 Laurels earned top four placements, with Camilla Burns (1st on floor; 2nd on beam), Victoria Jeanveau (bronze on beam), Olivia Shewchuk (bronze on bars) and Isabelle Pelletier (4th on beam) all showing well.
Up one year, 13 year-old Level 6 athlete Myah Tessarolo showed a big improvement, increasing her score from Orangeville and putting in a huge performance in earning fourth on the bars while teammate Blaire Rickard unleashed a powerful vault, the judges rewarding her with a score of 9.0.
Brooke Wylie (Level 6 – age 15+) was about as consistent as could be, finishing second in the vault, bars and floor to mirror that same placemen in the overall standings. The goal, across the board, was to show development from 2022 and Naomi Lake (Level 7 – age 14) maintained the trend that all Sudbury competitors displayed, rewarded both on the beam (4th) and the floor (5th), most notably.
Finally, senior Jennifer Lestwaard (Level 7 – age 16+) was granted a huge 9.60 on the floor, earning gold and helping in a big way towards her overall count of 36.55, also good enough for first place overall.
