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VIDEO and Story — Aerial dreams, MVP of the Week: Wiccem Toye-Oesch

Gymnastics, for one Prince Rupert girl, came about when she began treating her parent’s home as a jungle gym.
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Wiccem Toye-Oesch is just nine



Gymnastics, for one girl, came about when she began treating her parent’s home as a jungle gym.

“It’s because of my mom. I kept doing weird things in the living room, so she decided she wanted to get a club started so she wouldn’t have to worry about me breaking things,” Wiccem Toye-Oesch said, while taking a break from the gymnastics floor one Friday evening.

She was seven-years-old when she took up gymnastics. Now, the gym is the aspiring professional gymnast’s favourite place to be.

“When I’m here, I feel like I can do anything. I just feel like I’m free,” she said.

Toye-Oesch says she wants to do gymnastics at university, and maybe even make it her career. The club is relatively new and hasn’t started competing yet but it will be forming its first competitive team at the end of this year for next season, and Toye-Oesch hopes she will be on it.

Her coach, Bill Tyrwhitt, has high praise for her.

“Wiccem has a great attitude. She’s always working hard in the gym and she’s got really good goals. All the kids are hard working, but she stands out in the crowd,” he said.

Kids with dreams like Toye-Oesch are the very reason the club acquired so much brand-new equipment, the coach said.

“That’s why we got all this new equipment, to help dreams come true. She’s on track and she’s really excited about the gym,” Tyrwhitt said.

Toye-Oesch, who goes to Roosevelt Park Elementary School, smiles when she talks about her latest achievement — when she finally landed an aerial flip.

“It’s where you do a side flip with no hands, where you do a cartwheel with no hands. I like it because it’s really the only flip I can do,” she said, laughing.

But there are challenges to gymnastics, too. After all, it takes a lot of time and effort to be successful. Toye-Oesch said the toughest part has been the conditioning, the floorwork and the beam, but she said she’s getting better.

Tyrwhitt agrees.

“I’ve seen an awful lot of improvement in her. She’s constantly learning new things. It’s ongoing, she never stops. She’s got such a positive attitude and loves gymnastics and is really dedicated and it’s paying off,” he said.

Because of all of that time and effort, gymnastics has taught Toye-Oesch patience and how to calm herself down. It can be frustrating to attempt the same stunt so many times in a row. But it’s so rewarding when it finally works and that’s what makes gymnastics such a special sport for her.

“In most sports, you can’t really flip in or do bars or beams,” she said.

Toye-Oesch, who also plays basketball and enjoys that as well, shares a typical nine-year-old’s answer for why she’s passionate about gymnastics.

“I get to stay up past my bedtime and I get to go for two hours,” she said.

But in all seriousness, just by watching her at the gym, you can see she enjoys the sport, even in the joy that comes to her face when she lands a solid flip after approximately 10 attempts.

Her advice to someone else thinking about joining gymnastics is simple.

“Just try it out. It’s super fun and the coach is really nice.”