Skills, hard work and dedication are what led multiple student gymnasts to the USA Gymnastics Trampoline and Tumbling Regional Championships.
Kids ages 9 to 15 years old including Doug Miller’s, a Maple Valley resident, kids — Sophia and Dustin Miller — went to regionals with Summit Gymnastics, a gymnastics gym/club located in Maple Valley.
The competition took place in Las Vegas during the weekend of May 12.
One of the coaches from Summit Gymnastics, Debbie Johnson, said to get to regionals the kids have to first compete in their regular season and then once they reach a certain level they can go to the state championship and then onto regionals. After regionals the kids have the opportunity to move on to nationals.
Johnson said she had many kids on her team that qualified for nationals.
“We’ve got several that qualified. Now it’s just a matter of weather we’re going to go or not. The main thing is of score and then the other part is it’s financially pretty expensive. So it’s a matter of if we’ve got the financial means of doing it to go or not,” she said.
There were at least seven kids that were regional champions in their age group and in their event. The lowest placement her kids placed was 12th place, Johnson said.
Miller said this is one of the greatest things to happen to his kids.
“They’ve only been doing gymnastics for a couple of years, so this is the first time going to regionals (and) it feels phenomenal,” he said.
He went onto so say he has seen a difference in his kid’s coordination since starting gymnastics and is so excited that they were able to compete in a regional championship.
Once they are done competing, the kids have the freedom to do what they want, according to Johnson.
“They have to wait to go to the swimming pool after competition so that they’re there first and ready to compete properly and then they get all of the perks after the competition,” Johnson said.
One of the other coaches for the team said that getting to swim in the pool was probably one of their favorite parts of the trip.
Johnson said that sometimes parents use this as a way to take a family vacation and stay longer than they need to so the family can enjoy their time in Vegas.
“These kids work really hard from their standpoint and the coaches work really hard. Our sport is a year-round sport so it’s not just 15 weeks of a season that other kinds of teams will turnout for 15 weeks and then their thing is over. This is a year-round thing that they have to train for,” Johnson said. “It’s a lot of hard work and a lot of dedication by the coach and the kids, and parents actually. They have to be so supportive of doing this all year long.”
Results from the competition:
TRAMPOLINE
Hailey Houdak – 1st place
Makaylah Johnson – 1st place
Dustin Miller – 1st place
Lola Miller – 1st place
Sophia Miller – 3rd place
Emma Lee – 3rd place
Brooklyn Lykken – 4th place
Emma Miller – 11th place
Olivia Lee – 14th place
DOUBLE MINI TRAMPOLINE
Olivia Lee – 1st place
Makaylah Johnson – 1st place
Dustin Miller – 1st place
Sophia Miller – 1st place
Hailey Houdak – 2nd place
Emma Miller – 6th place
Brooklyn Lykken – 8th place
Lola Miller – 9th place
POWER TUMBLING
Dustin Miller – 1st place
Lola Miller – 2nd place
Hailey Houdak – 3rd place
Brooklyn Lykken – 3rd place
Sophia Miller – 3rd place
Emma Lee – 4th place
Olivia Lee – 12th place
Makaylah Johnson – 16th place
