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3 Valley gymnasts set for major tests against USA’s best
— JUNIOR OLYMPICS —
By charles grove
youngstown
In a dimly lit, almost hazy upstairs gymnasium off Market Street, the best gymnasts of the Mahoning Valley push each other to be some of the best in the nation.
Anna Warhol, 17, Mya Kasten,17, and Ashley Jones,15, are competing over the next two weekends at the Women’s Junior Olympic Championship events. The competitions aren’t for determining Olympic spots for this summer’s games in Rio, but will instead determine who’s the best in the nation in their specific levels.
This weekend, Kasten and Jones are in Virginia Beach, Va., for the Level 9 competition.
Next weekend, Warhol will be headed to Fort Worth, Texas, for the Level 10 (the highest level) competition.
They train at the Youngstown Gymnastics Center. The trio spends four hours a day, six days a week in what almost looks like a old airplane hangar. Trophies line the shelves just below walls with peeling paint.
The far areas have much younger gymnasts working in groups as parents look on, but everyone seems to stop what they’re doing when Warhol is flying down a runway to pull off an acrobatic number of flips off the vault.
To get this far, one thing is for sure: you have to be dedicated. Warhol, a junior at Boardman High School, often only experiences daylight during car rides traveling from Youngstown State for her Chemistry II class back to Boardman for the rest of her school day before heading to practice in the evening.
“I’ll wake up, eat breakfast, go to YSU for class, come back to Boardman for other classes and then right from there I’ll come to gymnastics until 7:30,” Warhol said. “I’ll go home, do my homework, shower and then usually I’ll get to bed around midnight.”
Kasten is a junior and Jones a freshman at Canfield High School.
Fridays are the one day off. Just the word brought smiles to all three faces.
“Fridays are nice,” Jones said. “They’re your social day. Friends are reserved for weekends.”
Those sacrifices have paid off in a big way for Warhol. Last September, the 4.0 junior, who’s completed three college courses, accepted a full scholarship from George Washington University and will be a member of their gymnastics team in the fall of 2017.
Warhol visited the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State as well, but the connection she made with her now future coaches was what put Warhol over the top.
“When I called their coaches I felt like they cared about my well being instead of just being like, ‘Yeah, come do gymnastics for us.’ They were interested in the person I am and the person I’m going to become after college,” she said.
A Division I full-ride is a long way from day one of Warhol’s freshman year during training. Warhol broke her ankle and was out for almost a year after an unsuccessful surgery lost her valuable training time.
“The first day I came in here, I broke my ankle,” Warhol said. “I had surgery on it that week but the doctor messed up so I had to get an arch reconstruction after that. They put two screws in initially, but they screwed through my ligaments to the bone. It took me probably a full year to fully recover.”
The trio has been attempting to perfect their routines since last summer, and now it all comes down to a few routines, with no second chances or do-overs.
“You have to be perfect at competitions when it counts because you only get one try,” Warhol said.
Just to qualify for nationals has taken about three months of no significant mistakes. Both Levels 9 and 10 have state meets you have to qualify for, a regional meet you can get into if you do well enough at state and finally nationals.
Warhol qualified for nationals at Level 9 twice before, but this is her first time at Level 10. Kasten and Jones are rookies to national competitions.
“Nationals are a really big deal,” Warhol said. “People will watch gymnastics at any meet and think it’s incredible but at nationals even you as a gymnast see incredible gymnastics.
“It’s surreal. You walk out and there’s a lot of screaming. It’s almost overwhelming at first but then you have to calm down and say, ‘I do this every day in practice and I’ve worked hard all year for this.’”
One would be fair to assume that tumbling high into the air, flipping all the way around bars like a child’s swing that’s been given an enormous push and performing moves on a 4-inch-wide beam would require an enormous amount of athleticism – and you’d be right. But all three said gymnastics is at the minimum, 90 percent mental strength.
“We work so hard with conditioning so we’re in shape and we know that so it becomes much more of a mind game,” Warhol said. “It’s about overcoming challenges and fighting more with your head and your body because your body can do the skills.”
All three started gymnastics by age 3. Jones and Warhol said the sport was able to capture their attentions from a young age and keep them focused while Kasten said the complexity of the sport is what really drew her in.
“I thought this sport challenged me the most,” Kasten said. “I tried soccer for like five years but this was more complex and I liked the challenge of that. That’s what makes it more enjoyable for me.”
The three are now replaying their complex routines though their heads on a near-constant basis. Any little mistake at this level will lead to a long car ride back.
Kasten is especially worried about her floor routine – 90 seconds of constant movement and three corner-to-corner tumbles she has to nail perfectly as she’ll struggle to catch her breath towards the end.
“I’m stressing out about the floor exercise,” Kasten said. “I’ve been sick so I’m kind of lacking endurance. It’s definitely the hardest thing we do in practice.”
With the screaming fans, parents, coaches and teammates, trust in themselves is what all three said will be key to a successful national competition.
“You have to trust your body and block everything else out,” Warhol said. “When you’re up on that balance beam you don’t hear anything at all. It’s just you and your moment.”