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Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Edgewater Gymnastics Struck Gold

SOUTHPORT - The gymnasts at the Edgewater Gymnastics Academy don’t mind getting their hands a little dirty.  They know that hard work pays off.

“We trained hard so we knew they would do well,” head coach Pam Kitchen said.

The 12 girls that make up the “Edgewater Dozen” brought back 21 gold medals and four first-place all-around titles at the AAU Nationals in Tampa last weekend.

Kitchen only expected to win one all-around title and not nearly that many gold medals.  But her gymnasts thought otherwise.

“We did kind of expect it,” gymnast Anna Rodriguez said.  “We all worked so hard and we all trained really hard.  Five hours a day, five days a week.”

“We’re hoping to get more actually,” gymnast Kelsie Jacks said.  “That was really good for what we wanted.  We’re just expecting to go forward and get more.”

Rodriguez, 12, was one of the four to win an all- around title.  She did that against more than 1,600 gymnasts from all over the country.

“It feels great win events because it feels like all your work has paid off and you finally feel, oh wait this is great, I finally won,” Rodriguez said. 

The wall at the Academy is nearly filled with championship banners dating back to 2004 when the academy opened.  Now, the only question is if there’s enough wall space for the new national championship banner.

“As the years go on, we get more and more banners, more trophies, more titles and it’s just amazing,” gymnast Jesica Capes said.

More banners may be on the way sooner than later.  Nine of the Edgewater gymnasts are representing Team Florida in the Junior Olympics this week in Knoxville, Tenn.

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