PAGE 814

November 4, 1984

SECTION

ENTERTAINMENT
BUSINESS + WGO - Tv

Plenty of Flicka talent...

‘but wealth wanted

WHILE THE Flicka Gym Club can lay claim to

being one of the top gymnastic clubs in Canada, it
cannot lay claim to being one of the wealthiest.

Finding funds to keep the
club going — and producing
Olvmpic-level gymnasts —
has become an essential task.

Club president Tom
McKenzie says where the
majority of clubs in B.C. are
funded through municipal
sources, Flicka is forced to
fund everything internally.

**The majority of 1t comes
trom our recreation fees and
our Kindergym fees and the
balance from rhe competitive
kids. But we're always short
Every year we have to fill up
the gap with fund-raising
and it’s getting harder and
harder,’ says McKenzie

By JOANNE MACDONALD

That's not from a lack of
trying. Besides continuing
shopping centre displays and
chocolate bar drives, the
club has this year expanded
into a satellite program, sen-

SS

x
~~
8

ding coaches into elementary
schools — each accommo-
dating up to 48 young gym-
nasts — to bolster interest
and involvement.

According to Flicka’s 33-
year-old club manager, Rus-
ty Pierce, an extra 200 boys
and girls have now. been
given the opportunity (to get
involved in gymnastics.

Pierce also administers the
successful Kindergym
classes, started in 1983 for
four- and five-year-olds and
extended to three-year-olds
this year, a move that added
SO participants.

Flicka also offers recre-
ational gym classes for girls
ages six to 12, which Pierce
says have been full for years.
The club now boasts about
600 members,

an increase
over 1983's totals.

Then there are Flicka’s
showcase athletes: SS gym-

nasts training at levels from
divisional! to national and in-
ternational. They range from
age eight to first year univer-
sity and include Bonme Wit-
tmeyer, the top Canadian at
the LA Olympics, and Anita
Botnen, now in Florida on a

full-ride university
ship.

The success of the com-
petitive gymnasts is astoun-
ding — the B.C. team won
the senior women’s title at
the nationals with two out of
three girls from Flicka, while
Flicka won three of four
team ttles at the provincial
age group championships.

(Other notables include
16-year-old Donna
Haugland, last year’s
Western Canadian champi-
on, and Sandra Botnen, too
young to compete at the
Olympics, who placed sev-
enth at the national champ-
onships.)

Pierce, a 25-year gym-
nasuics veteran who was Ca-
nadian trampoline champion
in 1974, says one of the
reasons for the success 1s
Flicka’s outstanding
coaching staff.

Technical Director Mike
Vossen was the 1984 Cana-
dian Olympic gymnastic
coach, and was also a top
Canadian gymnast. Owen
Walstrom, former captain of
the Canadian national team,
spent eight years on the in-
ternational scene. Sue Pierce

scholar-

competed at the 1972
Munich Olympics and Janet
Parsons was a Flicka gym
nast and national team
member Twenty vear
veteran Rob Smythe iw coach
of the club's satellite pro
gram

Another mayor con
tribution as Debbie Brown, an
awa td wit nin y
choreographer recently yascn
a Canada Council prant to
Study choreography i New
York

NS a vos Pope rg
“Chorcopraphy © a overs
tomb Chg Cee der Stic SEN
Creative There always
Something very vethite al
about her routines pind:
lake ter see hier forth snes
Thess ve been sitting there
for five hours pucdpray ane
Suddenly here Comes serra
thairip they fe waste te peta

See page B2

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NEWS photos Stuart Davis
SHOWING some of the rich talent to be found in Flicka
Gym Club, Nikki Whyte (lef) works out on the uneven bars
with coach Rusty Pierce spotting. Above, [3 year old Kristin
Wingfield shows form and balance on the beam. Kristin has
been with Flicka for five years, Nikki for two.

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