Michel Vivier of Vaughn, ON will be coming home with the most hardware after dominating the individual apparatus finals on Saturday to win three gold and one silver medal to add to her team silver. She also finished fourth in the individual all-around (AA) competition on Friday.
“After yesterday I pulled myself together and managed to achieve my goals for this competition,” said Vivier who was recently crowned the 2019 Canadian junior AA champion, and is headed to the Junior World Championships in July. “I am happy with my routines today and of course the end result of three gold and one silver. I plan to work hard cleaning up my execution particularly with ribbon (as I get ready for the Junior World Championships).”
Vivier took gold with her rope, ball, and clubs routines that all scored over 17 points.
In the individual AA competition on Friday, it was Elizabeth Savchenko of Montreal, QC who laid down four solid routines to walk away with the bronze medal. Technically she and Vivier finished with the same score total of 61.450 but Savchenko had the higher execution scores which broke the tie and gave her the podium result.
“This is my first competition representing Canada at such an important competition,” said Savchenko who finished second in the AA competition at the recent Canadian Championships behind Vivier. “I was very honoured to receive the bronze medal and to share the silver with my teammates in the team event! This competition has been a great experience so far.”
The team was composed of Viver, Savchenko, Tatiana Cocsanova of Montreal, and Suzanna Shahbazian, also of Montreal.
In the group competition, the athletes from Glimmer Athletic Club finished fourth overall in the AA competition, but came back on Saturday to take the bronze medal with their five ribbons routine. They finished fifth with their hoops routine. The group is composed of Katerina Berestetsky, Marta Kovalevych, Alissa Levytskyy, Anna Lunga, Bobbi Rimrott, and Sianna Tsakiridis.
For Vivier and the group, this competition is the lead up to the inaugural Junior World Championships that take place next month, and national team director Teresa Orr was pleased with the results: “The Pan Am experience has been a very positive step and beneficial for the team as they enter the final stages of preparation for Worlds. A few small changes and fine tuning their execution will be the main focus as we get ready for that competition.”
The Junior World Championships run from July 19th to 21st in Moscow, Russia.
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