Bring Your Medals — Junior Olympics competitors need to bring their medals to practice on Thursday and Friday so we can take group pictures with everyone with the hundreds of medals we won.

Lock In — Don’t forget to register for the Lock-In on Saturday, Aug. 2. There will be lots to do and the kids will go home tuckered out. Cost is $40. Drop off is 7 p.m. on Saturday and pick up is on or before 10 a.m. on Sunday (but not earlier than 8 a.m.). More details are available here. Boys’ please don’t hesitate to register as well.

Tosa’s Night Out — Our next community show event is Tosa’s Night Out on Tuesday, Aug. 5. We will be on the grass field outside the stadium at Hart Park. We will do two show events, one at 5 p.m. and another at 7 p.m. All levels of our team are asked to come (gold bugs, fast track and girls’ Level 2-9 and boys’ Levels 4-8). We will be set up for an obstacle course for kids to play on starting at 4 p.m. through 8 p.m. As a result, all levels of team, including gold bugs, will not have practice that night. As we will have equipment at the show, some levels will get to show some skills on some of our equipment. For more information on Tosa’s Night Out, click here.

Junior Olympics Success — Wildcard Gymnastics had tons of success at AAU Junior Olympics this week in Des Moines, Iowa. We were a little shy of our relatively unrealistic goal of 75 gold medals, but we did quite well. The following competitors won gold, silver or bronze medals in the all-sports combine strength competition, gymnastics and team performance:

All-Sports Combine:
Caelyr — Chin ups (gold), bench press (gold), power clean (gold), standing long jump (gold), 40 yard dash (gold), All-Around (gold)
West — Chin ups (gold), bench press (gold), power clean (gold), standing long jump (gold), 40 yard dash (gold), All-Around (gold)
Emily — Chin ups (gold), bench press (gold), power clean (silver), standing long jump (silver), 40 yard dash (silver), All-Around (gold)
Mariyah — Chin ups (silver), bench press (silver), power clean (bronze), standing long jump (bronze), 40 yard dash (bronze), All-Around (bronze)
Aaliyah — Chin ups (gold), bench press (gold), power clean (silver), standing long jump (gold), 40 yard dash (gold), All-Around (gold)
Bradyn — Chin ups (silver), bench press (gold), power clean (gold), standing long jump (silver), 40 yard dash (silver), All-Around (silver)
Hallie — Chin ups (silver), bench press (gold), power clean (gold), standing long jump (silver), 40 yard dash (silver), All-Around (silver)
Crystal — Chin ups (gold), bench press (gold), power clean (gold), All-Around (bronze)
Team — All-Around (gold)

Level 2 Gymnastics:
Caelyr — Vault (bronze), Bars (bronze), Beam (silver), Floor (silver), All-Around (bronze)
Lilly Jo. — Vault (gold), Bars (silver), Floor (bronze), All-Around (silver)

Level 3 Gymnastics:
Aniyah — Vault (silver), Bars (silver), Beam (bronze), All-Around (silver)
Essence — Vault (bronze), Beam (bronze)
Angela — Vault (silver), Floor (silver), All-Around (bronze)
Chasity — Vault (gold), Bars (gold), Beam (silver), Floor (gold), All-Around (gold)
Mariyah —Vault (silver), Beam (gold), All-Around (silver)
Ayanna — Bars (bronze), Beam (gold), Floor (gold), All-Around (gold)
Emma L. — Bars (gold), Beam (silver), Floor (gold), All-Around (gold)
Jordan S. — Vault (bronze), Beam (bronze)

Level 4 Gymnastics:
BeckyDee — Bars (bronze)
Emily G. — Beam (gold)
Aaliyah — Vault (silver), Bars (gold), Floor (gold), All-Around (silver)
Nadia — Vault (bronze), Beam (gold)
Ryann — Vault (gold), Bars (silver), Beam (bronze), Floor (bronze), All-Around (gold)
Maeggan — Bars (bronze), Beam (silver), Floor (silver), All-Around (bronze)

Level 5 Gymnastics:
Ava C. — Vault (bronze), Beam (gold), Floor (bronze), All-Around (bronze)

Level 6 Gymnastics:
Bradyn — Bars (gold), All-Around (gold)
Elie — Beam (gold), Floor (bronze), All-Around (silver)
Lilly Ja. — Vault (bronze), Bars (bronze), All-Around (bronze)
Izzie — Vault (gold), Bars (bronze), Beam (bronze), Floor (silver), All-Around (bronze)
Jordan M. — Vault (silver), Bars (silver)
Camille — Vault (gold), Beam (bronze), All-Around (silver)
Eden — Vault (gold), Floor (silver)

Level 8 Gymnastics:
Emma S. — Bars (bronze), Beam (bronze), Floor (bronze), All-Around (bronze)

Open Optional Gymnastics:
Hallie — Vault (silver), Bars (gold), Beam (silver), Floor (gold), All-Around (silver)

Team Performance Gymnastics:
Compulsory Team — Bronze (Caelyr, Lilly Jo., Essence, Nadia, Aniyah, Ayanna, Ryann, Angela, Chasity, Aaliyah, Emily, Ella)
Optional Team — Silver (Hallie, Emma, Crystal, Hattie, Bradyn, Elie, Lilly Ja., Izzie, Jordan, Eden, Ava C., West)

In total, we won 55 gold medals, 40 silver medals and 37 bronze medals. In all, Wildcard gymnasts finished third or higher 132 times. Aaliyah was our biggest winner with seven gold medals across gymnastics and the all-sports combine.

We also had several competitors record highs for the meet. West set the standard for bench presses (38) and power cleans (29) of any of the 21 boys in the competition. Emily G. tied for the top amount of bench presses (46) by anyone in the meet. Hallie proved to be the strongest with the most bench presses (46) and power cleans (35) of the 41 competitors regardless of gender or age. Lifters had 90 seconds to do as many lifts as they could of a percentage of their body weight (roughly 40 percent). Many competitors couldn’t go the full 90 seconds, but all of ours did.

Ava C. had the highest beam score of any of the Level 5 girls gymnasts with a 9.000. Izzie had the highest vault score of any Level 6 with a 9.700. Hallie had the highest bars score (9.225) and floor score (9.300) of any open optional in the competition.

In the all-sports combine (a weightlifting and track event), we won as a team, beating two weightlifting clubs and one track club. We beat people who train to do this and we did it with no direct practice, only the conditioning we do on a regular basis.

In all, it was a very successful competition for us and we look forward to next year in Virginia!