Level 1 and 2 competitors represent either completely new gymnasts, or those who have never entered a competitive stream.
One of the strongest athletic links, in these events, is with the dance community, with a good number of the young ladies attempting to carryover their skill-set from the studio to the gymnasium.
Fourteen-year-old Marika Palkovits of Collège Notre-Dame is one of the many such athletes, making full use of her leaps, turns and ciseaux in capturing Level 1 gold on the beam.
"Beam is the same as dancing, except that I only have one strip," noted the grade nine student with just under a decade of experience in dance.
"It's like placing all of it into one small area, but I could still incorporate my dance moves."
Having qualified from NOSSA only on the beam, Palkovits noted that both sides of the coin were at play given the situation of competing in just one of the four apparatus at OFSAA.
"You psych yourself up more, because you have more time to think about it," she said. "But you overthink it, and seeing the rest of the competition is really tough."
Still, she looks forward to returning again in 2016, when she is bumped automatically to Level 2 by virtue of competing at Level 1 this year.
"Now I will get higher competition, I can do more skills, because there are some of them that I am not allowed to do right now, even though I've been dancing my whole life," stated Palkovits.
Still, to be sure, the lure of floor and beam, far surpasses the bars and the vault.
"I don't like doing bars, because it gives me bruises and makes me pop my veins," said Palkovits with a laugh. "It doesn't please me very much."
Later in the day, as the Level 2 events wrapped up, there wasn't a whole lot that CND teammate Makenzie Gratton wasn't pleased with.
The 15-year-old Grade 10 student won gold on bars, bronze on the beam, and was fourth in the vault.
"I'm really proud of my performance today," said Gratton. "I really worked hard all year to get all of the elements that I needed. Today was one of my best performances."
In fact, she noticed a huge difference, even looking back at the Northern Ontario Championships, less than two weeks ago. "At NOSSA, I was a little bit nervous, because it was my first competition ever," stated Gratton.
"I think NOSSA got rid of my nerves a little bit, so I was a little bit more prepared."
Comfortable in all three events in which she competed, Gratton was not surprised that her best result of the day came on the uneven bars.
"The bars is one that I am more confident with, just because it kind of comes naturally to me," she said. "It's just something that I'm good at, which I am really lucky for."
Local gymnasts added another 10 medals to their haul on Tuesday, bringing the two-day SDSSAA total to a whopping 25 medals, including seven golds.
Level One
Mikeala Ethier (Collège Notre-Dame) - gold on vaultMarika Palkovits (Collège Notre-Dame) - gold on beam
Gabrielle McGuire (Collège Notre-Dame) - silver on floor
Victoria Tardif (Manitoulin) - silver on vault
Mistelle Laurin (Horizon) - bronze on bars
Mistelle Laurin (Horizon) - bronze on beam
Mikaela Ethier (Collège Notre-Dame) - bronze on floor
Level Two
Makenzie Gratton (Collège Notre-Dame) - gold on barsMakenzie Gratton (Collège Notre-Dame) - bronze on beam
Christine Cousineau (Collège Notre-Dame) - bronze on floor
The meet wrapped up mid-afternoon, with the organizing committee of convenor Jo-Anne Bradley (Champlain), Heather Theijmeijer (Manitoulin), Kassandra Bradley (Champlain), Jack Miller (Marymount) and Dave Makela (SDSSAA) receiving plenty of well-deserved thanks for a job well done.
The 2015 OFSAA Gymnastics Championships were hosted by Ecole Secondaire Catholique Champlain, utilizing the New Sudbury facility of the GymZone as the venue of choice for the event.
