Athlete profiles – Women’s Team Canada

TOKYO (JPN), FIG Office, October 3, 2011: Women Team Canada is on track for a strong showing in Tokyo says women’s national team director Kyna Fletcher of Vancouver”.This team is out there to compete, everyone knows what’s at stake,” says Fletcher. “They are in the training to win phase of their careers and that’s what they are aiming for.” Vaculik, a two-time Canadian senior champion, Leblond-Chartrand and Dominique Pegg were members of last year’s world championship squad which placed 13th in Rotterdam. The other four members of the team will be making their first appearance at a world championship.

Vaculik recently returned to the national team after her first year competing with Stanford University, and has added the difficulty she needs to upgrade her routines for international competition. “She’s always been a great competitor and the experience of competing every weekend in the U.S. will really pay off for her,” says Fletcher.

Lee, a key member of Canada’s bronze medal winning team at the 2007 Pan Am Games in Rio, made a spectacular return to competition last December after a two-year hiatus with a back problem. “I’m really excited about competing at my first world championship and happy to be healthy,” says Lee. “We’re really focused on our performance as a team and how we’re going to help each other to reach our goal of getting to the Olympics.”

Pegg has had a strong year of international competition, Gardiner stormed back to win the all around title at this year’s Canadian championships while Chiarelli won gold on vault and Leblond-Chartrand placed fifth all-around.

In July, Chiarelli, Leblond-Chartrand, Pegg and Vaculik, competed together with Jessica Savona to win the team bronze medal at the Tokyo Cup held at the same venue as the upcoming world championships. “They’ve had a chance to get acquainted with the venue and the equipment and that’s definitely a plus for us,” says Fletcher. “Tokyo is really about the execution score and not the difficulty score and that’s where we’ve put the focus” says Fletcher.

(Source: Gymnastics Canada)