Western Canada Cup 2011!

Here we are travelling again and this time the wifi works so we'll hopefully be able to update as we go!

The EDGE team is here in green Port Coquitlam, British Columbia for the 27th Western Canada Cup for Trampoline & Tumbling. Brody and Hailey are here with the Alberta Provincial Team (having been selected with 7 others for this honor) and Kelsey, Emma, Genai, Alanya, Justin, Rachel and Belle are representing the EDGE. We flew into Vancouver International last night and drove to the Hotel in just over an hour. Lucky we were told afterwards as others took as long as 2 hrs plus (and one family got lost and took 4 hours to find Port Coquitlam). After a nice meal (Spaghetti and Meatballs for most) at the hotel we handed Hailey and Brody over to the Alberta Team Manager (they will be staying with the Alberta team for the duration of the meet but travel with us) and then we all headed for bed and a good rest before the training and first day of competition.

This morning we hopped out of bed bright and early and headed out to the International House of Pancakes for a tasty breakfast. Everyone enjoyed themselves and fueled up nicely for the training afterwards. We made a point of vetoing any whip cream due to the famous Colton Smith Whip Cream incident of a travelling meet in the past. We managed to get out of there spill free and zipped over to the gym.

Training was quite good. Everyone was a little nervous but got used to everything quickly and pulled off routines on every event. The set up is different from what we're used to with warm-up equipment separate from competition equipment like we see at International Meets. This meant making sure that they took a few turns on 3 trampolines, 2 DMTs, and 1 Tumbling floor. All the equipment is of good quality and we had a great time. We found some lunch at a nearby Subway and enjoyed some sunshine in a park (mostly playing on a statue of a Maypole).

This evening was also the preliminary round of competition for several of the athletes. Justin had a best-ever Compulsory routine on Individual Trampoline and was quite pleased. Genai had phenomenal routines (both of them) on DMT. Rachel lived up to her nickname and was a "Rock Star" on DMT with a picture perfect, stuck, Straddle Jump to Straight Barani. Kelsey was especially pleased with a completed Optional on Tramp (with 10 different skillls!) We watched and cheered as Hailey and Brody both strutted their stuff on Tramp. Hailey was particularly spectacular on her optional (which she had been a bit worried about in training). Brody toughed out two strong routines despite feeling blah and feverish (don't worry Jen he's fine.)

We had an excellent dinner (great THANKS to Mr Atkins who was particularly wonderful to us there) and are well fueled and about to be well rested for our long day tomorrow!

Stay Strong.

Heart, Body, and Mind

Jamie and Janelle (who's particularly strong).