By Jenessa Walgren
Special to the Chronicle Progress
Some local champions made the trek to Louisiana to compete in national gymnastics last week.
Delta Flyers Gymnastics announced that six athletes, Chevy Abbott, 14; Ronni Wright, 15; Ritchi Wright, 10; Lynlee Keyte, 14; Jaydree Grimshaw, 13; and Noel Rowley, 13, traveled to New Orleans to compete at the National Gymnastics Association Nationals competition, June 17 to 22.
“For our first year as a club at Nationals, Delta Flyers Gymnastics was represented well by these extraordinary girls,” said Eric Kartchner, club owner and coach.
Each girl had qualifying scores to compete in all four national events; floor, uneven bars, vault, and beam.
“We like to keep our girls well rounded with training in all four events; we like them to be skillful in each one, all of the girls that qualified to go to nationals went on to compete in all four,” said Kartchner. “These girls have been training three hours each practice, five days a week for the last three years to prepare themselves for their goal to make it to the Nation- al Championships.”
“Competing against the top 20 athletes from each state,” Nate Taylor, another coach, added.
The girls’ journey to nationals was not quick, or easy. It took hundreds of competitions and practices. The group that went practiced together.
Even though their levels aren’t the same, the coaches describe that in the gym, there’s always competition.
“All of the girls push each other to train hard to become the best they can be,” Kartchner said
The girls competed at the state championships first, where they had to score a 33 all around to qualify for regional competition.
That was not an easy feat though; Region 1 consists of California, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, and Utah. Even though there was stiff competition, the girls were able to push themselves into the winner’s circle and onto nationals.
Two of them, Ronni Wright and Chevy Abbott, had especially good scores in the region and were recruited to compete for the Region 1 team. Both accepted, but also competed for their hometown team.
The Delta club made its way to New Orleans on June 17, and competed the following two days.
“I was optimistic that we would have girls place top three in a single event, we knew we were good enough for that,” Kartchner said.
Athletes from around the country, 1,538 in total, competed at the event.
Each Delta athlete pulled their weight. Every girl placed in the top 20 or higher. Each athlete ended with a personal best score for the season.
Chevy Abbott is now the National Champion in both the Vault and the Floor Exercise. Ronni Wright was named National Champion on the Floor Exercise. Both finished as Top 25 ranked gymnasts in the nation.
“The awesome part is that the two national champs were invited to the US National training camp in October in Nashville,” Kartchner said. “We brought home 17 medals and only had six girls competing. We were on the podium multiple times, and no one had ever heard of Delta, Utah.”
That all may be changing, though.
Chevy Abbott and her mother, Skye, praised Kartchner and all the coaches. “Our coaches are always really supportive,” Skye said. “They always cheer our girls on.”
“Eric has done so much for us, and made it possible for us to go to nationals,” Chevy said.
Chevy and her fellow participants have one message to their community: thank you.
“To the friends and family that continuously support the team, we’d like the thank you,” Chevy said. “We couldn’t have been able to do all of this without you.”
