It is not often that an Olympic team practices in the Westlock area, but last month a dozen of the county’s best gymnasts spent two weeks in Tawatinaw.
The training facility there, owned and built by Dom Kriangkum, is by most measures a world-class athletic centre, as evidenced by the world-class performances given by the athletes at a mock competition last Thursday afternoon.
“This is one of the best gyms, especially since we can use it exclusively for this team,” said Masaaki Naosaki, the team’s head coach.
There are many excellent gyms across the country, he added, but the facility in Tawatinaw has the added advantage of being secluded, meaning the athletes essentially have sole use of the equipment and can concentrate on their training.
Several of the team members were working toward the World University Student Games in China, to be held Aug. 6-17, and others were focusing on a longer-term goal of the World Championship, scheduled for Oct. 7-16 in Tokyo, Japan. That competition will be a qualifier for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Naosaki said.
The team had a little extra encouragement during their time in Tawatinaw, as former Olympics gold medalist Kyle Shewfelt was on hand to offer advice and encouragement to the young athletes.
“I’m trying to lend my experience to the guys,” he said.
Shewfelt won a gold medal for gymnastics in Athens in 2004, and competed again in Beijing in 2008. He has since retired from the sport, but said he likes to stay involved in a mentor role for the younger athletes.
He echoed Naosaki’s opinion about the quality of the facility in Tawatinaw, and emphasized the importance of having training camps somewhere that the athletes can really focus in on their skills.
“The guys have been working for many, many years — some more than 20 years — to get to the level they’re at now,” Shewfelt said. “Each particular skills that they’re doing, each one took years of progressions to build up to.”
Watching the men practice and compete, it was obvious even to the uninitiated observer that their skills were among the very best. They performed acrobatics that many in the audience likely thought to be impossible.
“That’s the whole point of gymnastics,” he said, “to make the impossible look easy.”
Although gymnastics is traditionally thought of as an individual sport, the sense of team spirit amongst the men was clear; shouts of praise and encouragement were commonplace while the athletes were performing, something Shewfelt said is one of the focuses of the program.
“It’s about holding your teammates accountable to excellence,” he said. “The way they qualify to the Olympics is through a team, so you need every guy to be at their best.”
That being said, the hard work and dedicated training are done primarily because this is a sport the athletes enjoy, which Shewfelt said is crucial to their overall success.
“Our philosophy is gymnastics should be enjoyable. If you’re going to spend your life doing it, it should be fun,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to bust your ass.”
