Gymnastics gets a lift

The recent Legends Performance Camp that brought together five elite coaches from the US to work with local coaches and female gymnasts in a three-day program at the Gymnastics Association of the Philippines (GAP) National Training Center in Intramuros was a major lift for the sport. National gymnasts Chiara Mijares and Ian Sy conceived the idea of a camp “to give the gymnastics local coaches the opportunity to develop their skills and foundation under the eyes of elite and Olympic-level coaches.”

The camp coaches were Cliff Parks, Mary Wright, Kerry Huston, Terin Humphrey and Bob Peterson. Parks was involved with the Philippine gymnastics team at the 2019 SEA Games, Hong Kong Invitational and Asian Championships. Wright has been an Olympic coach for Canada, New Zealand and the US. Huston was a US men’s national floor exercise champion for 25 years. Humphrey was a gold medalist in team at the 2003 World Championships and collected a silver in team and another silver in uneven bars at the 2004 Olympics. Peterson, the 1991 US national elite rookie coach of the year awardee, mentored Mykayla Skinner for 12 years. Skinner took the bronze in vault and was on the US team that struck gold at the 2014 World Championships. She earned the silver in vault at the Tokyo Olympics last year.

Former Bulgarian national gymnast George Kostadinov was in the original cast of coaches. “Coach George notified us that he would be unable to make the trip 72 hours before the coaches embarked on their more than 24-hour journey to Manila as most live in the middle of the US so they had to fly to Los Angeles or San Francisco to take their international flights,” said Mijares. “We had to quickly find another elite coach available and coach Bob was on board with less than 30 hours’ notice, coming in full support.”

Mijares and Sy did the “grunt” work in organizing the camp, collaborating with the coaches in synchronizing schedules, arranging logistics, sending out invitations, coordinating the program and rotations, certificates, airfares and accommodations, designing shirts and writing sponsorship letters, among other details. Mijares said the camp was a collaboration between the non-profit initiative called Flip It Forward PH and GAP. Philippine Airlines sponsored the coaches’ international tickets.

“Flip It Forward, in line with Tita Cynthia Carrion’s vision for women’s artistic gymnastics, partnered up and sponsored athletes and coaches from various LGUs all across Luzon so they could attend the skills clinic and improve their technique from the US experts,” said Mijares. “Give credit to the foreign coaches who lent their time, energy as we set out to bridge the gap in training access and to uplift the Filipino gymnastics community. These coaches wanted to help us out and give the boost the athletes needed, especially after the pandemic caused gym closures, halting training progress.”

Highlights of the camp were the exposure to the GAP National Training Center’s premier facilities, learning from Olympic national gymnasts and elite coaches, gaining the opportunity to participate in one-on-one coaching sessions, appreciating the emphasis on personal skills development and improvement and in the coaches’ clinic, taking the pathway to continue education through observation, hands-on practice and networking.