Fans of aerial acrobatics won’t have to venture to the Stampede City for a showcase of Western Canada’s best tumbling and trampoline athletes as a foothills-based club is bringing a world-class event to its Okotoks headquarters.
The Airborne Tumbling and Trampoline Club hosts its eighth annual invitational meet, Feb. 4-5 at its Edison School gym, a national trial event featuring the best athletes in the discipline from Alberta as well as those from select clubs in B.C. and Saskatchewan.
Leanne Kilcommons, the event’s organizer, said there’s a lot at stake for the athletes taking part in the invitational.
“It’s an invitational meet that we host, but it’s also a national trial,” Kilcommons said. “National level athletes have four opportunities, four trials that they can attend where they do their routines and they have to make a certain score to qualify for nationals.”
Tumbling is not an Olympic sport, but is very much an international discipline with its competitors vying for spots at events such as the World Age Games, the Pan American Games and Indo Pacific Games.
“So you’re seeing a world level, world class event that is local,” Kilcommons said. “We are so blessed that we have this in the vicinity of Okotoks, in the foothills area, and not having to go into Calgary.”
The Airborne meet is the second of four national trials in trampoline. Airborne
features three national club members – Connor Richardson, Layne Bell and Nicholas Kilcommons – though the latter will be held out of the event with an injury. The Airborne meet will feature three distinct divisions of competition, the trampoline, the double-mini trampoline and tumbling.
Leanne Kilcommons said the level of expertise the athletes possess is something to behold.
“These kids are doing a back tuck into another element and it’s awe inspiring as they’re staying on a trampoline while doing one thing after another and maintaining a certain height.”
She said the double mini trampoline can be just as exhilarating.
“They’re running onto a trampoline which is a square three-feet by three-feet and yet they’re running on to that, jumping onto one then onto another and then doing a potential three back summersault and landing,” Kilcommons said.
“There’s a lot of power, there’s a lot of height, there’s a lot of explosive things happening.”
Promotions co-ordinator Florence Christophers, also an Okotoks Town councillor, said the Airborne meet offers the public a unique opportunity to view the elite athletes in the discipline right here in Okotoks.
“I think it’s inspiring to support youth and sports in our community and sometimes it’s just kind of cool for kids who don’t quite know what sports are going to be for them yet to come watch a meet of this caliber,” she said.
