One is a lonely number for a Foothills gymnastics club adjusting to an ever-changing landscape.
Though gymnastics was not initially included as part of the restrictions on group fitness and indoor team sports announced on Nov. 12, the hammer came down on the sport four days later, allowing for only one-on-one lessons to continue.
“And that was in a defined space – meaning the entire gym, one athlete, one coach at one time,” said Karen Sim, coach and owner of Foothills GymStars. “Not even any other coaches doing cleaning or admin or anything, just one gymnast, one athlete in the entire space.
“We felt that was a little unfair given that fitness gyms in the same area are allowed 40 to 80 people in at one time.”
Sim said GymStars have put considerable time and money into its sanitization and safe return to training after being the first gymnastics club in the province to re-open, on June 12, after the spring lockdown. The club worked endlessly to put forward its 30-plus page proposal to return to training.
“We’ve put a lot of effort, money and time into making it such a safe environment,” she said. “The kids have to sanitize their hands and their feet, they’re scanned on entry and have to answer all the COVID questions.
“It just seems unfair that one group is penalized while another group can continue as normal.”
Since re-opening, the club has had no positive cases of COVID-19 amongst its athletes or parents.
“As a parent I would much rather put my kid in Karen’s gym than I would in a school because I know how clean and how careful they are,” said Janne Holmgren, whose daughter Majken is a competitive gymnast with Foothills. “The other point is we’re not talking about something that is recreational, or running around a gym, these kids are committed athletes.”
That commitment extends to the families, added Holmgren, noting that since March the family has kept a strict regimen to allow the athletes to get a chance to participate in their passions.
“We haven’t visited with everybody. We don’t really go shopping, we don’t have people over because in my family we want the kids to continue with their dreams, which is to become high-level athletes,” she said. “This back-and-forth swing, where they’ve just gone back and chased after the first lockdown, and now we’ve gone again from 20 hours to one or two hours.”
Holmgren said it also sends the wrong message to hold athletes back after they’ve worked so hard and done the right things in order to safely train.
“The message we’re sending them is it’s still not good enough,” she said. “And the kids are really confused as to ‘what’s going on? What else do we have to do? Why are they picking on us all the time?'
“…this yo-yo affect is huge psychologically and huge physically.”
Breaks from training, even those as short as two weeks, are tremendously disruptive for the young athletes. In gymnastics, the athletes are conditioned to constantly train in a specific environment, Sim said.
And as she noted, it’s a sport that tends to have a shorter window for its athletes to compete in given the physical strain and demands on the body.
“I love what I do, it’s my livelihood, but it’s also my passion and has been my entire life,” she said. “These aren’t just the average kids, it takes a lot to be a competitive gymnast, kids between the ages of 8 and 12 – this is their everything. It’s mentally tough for them, it’s physically tough for them, but they absolutely love it.
“They need this, they need to keep physically and mentally active and the thought that they would lose another competition season where in gymnastics, it’s such a young sport, they don’t go much beyond 16, most kids, once you get into adulthood your body can’t do the same thing it can when we’re kids.
“It’s very short-lived.”
Training at the one-on-one level is not a sustainable model for the GymStars.
Sim said the loss of income has come from all angles, from the loss of birthday party opportunities to managing to stay afloat with the mandated 50 per cent capacity since re-opening.
“We’re still barely managing to make ends meet and now this,” she said. “How can a small business sustain this?”
Space is also not considered in the restrictions with the massive 6,000 square-foot facility housing Airborne Tumbling and Trampoline and Foothills GymStars, each only allowed to train one athlete at a time, while more recreational leisure centres have far less restrictions.
“We’re not saying we’re against restrictions,” Holmgren said. “We’re happy to comply as a club, but it’s got to make sense. There’s absolutely no risk at our club compared to what you see out in public places, the contact tracing is always there for our club and it’s always the same kids.”
When asked why the government sought to restrict the fitness and sports groups, Holmgren said they simply picked on an easy target.
“Maybe not having thought through how much money goes into team sports and kids athletics,” she said. “Thinking that ‘we’re going to start here and see what happens.’”
Sim echoed the sentiment adding that the large number of new cases are in the 20-39 age group, which certainly doesn’t include young children that make-up the GymStars roster.
“Our oldest athlete is 13 years old,” she said. “The majority of our kids, especially in competitive range from 8 to 12, and that’s not really an age group where we’ve seen a lot of spread.”
For Sim, seeing and hearing of athletes choosing to quit as a result of all the restrictions in place is a shame given all the positive aspects that sports provide for young people.
“It helps them in so many ways, whatever sport it is,” she said. “It keeps them off the streets, it keeps their mind and body occupied, it keeps them fit and healthy.”
For more information go to foothillsgymstars.com.
