Congratulations to Capital City Gymnastics Club, Edmonton Rhythmics, Sprites Special Olympics and the Alpha Rhythmic Gymnastics Club who shared a great display of our sport during the National Gymnastics Week demo at Londonderry Mall.

Recreational gymnastics from the Arabesque Rhythmics performed in the Olympic Torch Relay ceremonies in Devon on January 15th. Congratulations gymnasts on a great performance!

In support of the Alpha Rhythmic Gymnastics Club performing teams attending Canadian Gymnaestrada in Winnipeg, the Club is selling tickets to an exclusive event at the West Edmonton Mall Waterpark on Feb 12th from 7:30pm-10:30pm. Tickets are $6.00 each. For more information contact Ramona Puchalsky (ramonapuchalsky@hotmail.com 780-474-1381).

Amanda medalled in the team all-around event at the Junior Pan Am Gymnastics Championships at Havana, Cuba. St. Albert Gazette did a profile story on her. Click here for article.

Congratulations and Best Wishes to Katie Iafolla and Kenny Wurtak on their marriage on December 28th, 2009.

Congratulations to the Milcius family and Calgary rhythmic gymnast Iveta Milciute as they celebrate becoming Canadians. Iveta is a first year junior with Chinook Rythmique Gymnastics club.

Congratulations to all the Festival of Trees participants, December 27 and 28, 2009. Rhythmicana, Alpha, Sprites, Edmonton Rhythmics, Capital City and Elena's Rhythmic Gymnastics Clubs all performed during this very popular Edmonton event. It was great to hear lots of cheers and appreciation from the packed audience! More photos to come.

Rhythmic Gymnasts from Alberta continue to show impressive results at the 12th Annual Happy Cup in Ghent second international competition of the season. Hannah Parry, in her first major international competition, came 6th All-Around in her age group, and placed an impressive 6th in Hoop and 5th in Ball in finals. Bree Chelle, a Canadian National Team member, started her first season as a senior with a solid 12th place finish All-Around, and came 6th in the Hoop final. The team traveling to Ghent, Belgium for the 2009 Happy Cup also included 1 Pre-Junior (Alexandra Fomina, Montreal) and 3 juniors (Amanda Greenwell from Edmonton and Lourenca Agla and Noémie Guay, both from Montreal.) Judit Berecz of Edmonton was Canada’s assigned judge, and Jacynthe Larivière of Montreal was the team coach.

Competition was strong from the rhythmic gymnastics strongholds of Bulgaria, Russia, Uzbekistan, Azerbaidjan, Japan and the Ukraine, and competitors represented twenty-seven different countries and over fifty different clubs.

Alberta is making a strong start to the season, with these results following the silver medals brought home by Elizabeth Kazakov (Calgary) and Amanda Sha (St. Albert) from the Junior Pan-American Championships. To see these top gymnasts compete for national titles, mark your calendars for June 2-6, 2010, and join us in Edmonton at Grant MacEwan Centre for Sport and Wellness.

Congratulations to the Canadian Team at the Junior Pan Am Championships. Team Silver, Three Group Golds (AA and two apparatus finals), Individual Bronze AA, 1 silver apparatus final and 3 bronze apparatus final medals.

Capital City’s rhythmic gymnasts are sharing their Halloween loot at their upcoming parent’s show.

Congratulations to the 2009 Special Olympics Coach of the Year, Meg Smale. Meg is a Level 3 NCCP coach in Rhythmic Gymnastics and has been sharing her skills with the Special Olympics community in Alberta for over a decade. She is currently the technical director for rhythmic gymnastics for Special Olympics Alberta, and a past board member of Rhythmic Gymnastics Alberta. She and Cheryl Aloisio run the Evolution and Martial Gymnastics club in Edmonton.

Gymnasts of all levels gathered in Calgary for the Provincial Championship hosted by Chinook Rhythmics. Results are available here. Pictures of the awards are available at Tom Hamp's Prairie Light Photography website:

• Friday
• Saturday Morning
• Saturday Afternoon

Please also mention that competition images are available by downloading from a private webpage for each gymnast. Images are at full resolution, so can be printed up to poster size, without copyright marks. Cost of each gymnast's package, which contains 20-40 images depending on suitability, is $45.00 + GST = $47.25. Payment can be made by VISA.

Parents and gymnasts should please contact Tom directly at TomHamp@PrairieLight.org. (On request, a set of contact sheets (thumbnails) of the images can be made available prior to ordering.)

Bree Chelle, Elizabeth Kazakov and Olivia Jack made the national team! Results are available here. More news and pictures to follow.

Hannah Parry represented the athletes of the future University Games in Brussels on May 23rd. The Edmonton 2015 bid committee invited Hannah to join the Canadian Bid team as they made their last presentation in the hopes of winning the Games for Canada, but Korea was eventually declared the winner of the 2015 Summer Games. The website described the Edmonton bid by saying, “The MC was nobody less than former Universiade and Olympic Swimming Champion Alex Baumann who delivered an emotional plea recalling his participation and medal winning performance at the 1983 Universiade in Edmonton. However, it was 12-year old rhythmic gymnast Hannah Parry who stole the hearts of everybody present in the room with her stunning performance.” Hannah came 3rd AA at the Canadian Individual Championships in Hamilton just a few days after returning from Brussels.

Results from the Western Regional Championships in Winnipeg have been posted.
Congratulations to Team Alberta, leaping away with 57 medals! (19 Gold, 25 Silver, 13 Bronze) Our National Stream Seniors "owned" the podium (Caitlin Marchak 1st, Olivia Jack 2nd, Caitlane Tarun 3rd, Hannah Whitford 9th), while our PreNovices and Novices (Marina Lavrentier 4th, Nina Pavlovic 7th, Hannah Parry 2nd, Iveta Milciute 5th) blew the competition away with stellar performances. Our Juniors rocked the rotation by taking the two top spots (Amanda Sha 1st, Bree Chelle 2nd, Amanda Greenwell 4th, Katarina Yakimchuk 12th, Leah Gasparovic 13th, Maddy Fraser 18th) and our Provincial Stream athletes twirled around the competition.(Gayle Laird 2nd, Natalia Pavlovic 3rd, Lilian Dang 10th, Nicole Shteinbah 13th, Londyn Franko 14th, Jenna Matijevic 20th, Brooklyn Fedoretz-Maxwell 1st, Erica Teghtmeyer 6th, Mathilde Ruth 8th, Caitlyn French 1st, Meika Wong 11th, Sylvia Cao 13th, Jenny Wang 14th, Chelsea Tran 15th, Katelyn Malayko 6th, Kristin Dombroski 7th, Cecilie Fenger-Anderson 2nd, Andrea Virag 3rd, Isabella Englert 5th)

A fully packed house of audience and lots of gymnasts is a sign of an awesome show - 46 coaches and 230 gymnasts at the provincial gymnaestrada with News coverage! Please click on picture to see the picture gallery for the event.

Congrats to all our judges

Capital City Gymnastics Club shows how they combine rhythmic and artistic gymnastics in their recreational classes. Click here.

It is nice to see the PRISM program being used in the North West Territory. Details here.

Click here for great article about the non-competitive and competitive aspects of rhythmic gymnastics, and what parents should look for when assessing a rhythmic gymnastics club