A group of Grande Prairie cheerleaders have punched their ticket to compete in Orlando, Florida. Grande Prairie Gymnastics will be sending 19 athletes from the Gymniks All-Stars Code Teal Team to The Summit this May. Coach Lindsay Morrison says everyone is excited to go.
“The excitement hasn’t calmed down since we got our bid at the beginning of February. It’s just kind of a full mode to summit kind of thing. We’re really up high working hard in the gym and I think just new goals have been continuing to be set and reached and just working towards that end goal.”
The Summit is one of the most exclusive competitions for cheerleading and is by invitation only. Code Teal will become the first team in Northern Alberta to go. In order to be invited, teams have to enter an event that’s offering bids. According to Morrison, their road to The Summit started last May.
“There’s only one event within Alberta as of this year that offers a chance to get a bid. We went to that competition in Calgary called the Calgary Battle of Champions in February. We competed then, made our intention to get a bid and then turned out we were awarded a bid after so we’re very excited.”
Along with adding extra training time to the schedule in preparation, The Summit will be the team’s fifth competition of the year. So far they have been to two events in Edmonton, one in Calgary and they have one coming up in Anaheim, California in April. Morrison says she just wants to see her athletes do their best.
“Our main focus is always to run the best routine that we can, the most clean routine and trying to hit zero which means zero deductions… We don’t have a first, second, third goal it’s just trying to do our best and improve every competition we go to.”
The Summit will be held at Walt Disney World in Orlando, May 2nd to the 5th.