Football, basketball, and hockey games are often packed with fans, but if you’ve ever been to a gymnastics meet, you’ve seen that the stands are usually filled with parents, siblings, grandparents, or other family members, and there’s not a lot of high school support.
“Gymnastics isn’t a common sport, especially with the amount of exposure we get at Northview,” junior Bianca Hrynciw said. Not many students have been to a gymnastics meet, and if a student does go to one, it’s hard to know what to look for since there is so much going on at once.
“Most people don’t understand the sport, which makes them less likely to watch or take interest, which I think is a huge part of it,” senior Grace Schlageter said. Schlageter has done gymnastics since she was three, so she knows how draining the sport can be.
“It tests you physically, mentally, and emotionally. If you look up the hardest sports, gymnastics is up there, and it always has been,” she said.
According to ESPN, gymnastics is the eighth hardest sport. ESPN asked eight panelists to rank each sport’s demands in 10 different categories, and then totaled and averaged those responses to see the degree of how difficult the sport was. Then, that number put the difficulty of each sport in context with the other sports they rated. Gymnastics was right behind tennis, and right above baseball/softball.
Gymnasts have multiple practices per week, conditioning, and most of the students on the NV gymnastics team are also on the cheer team so they have to go to those practices, games, and competitions as well.
“Gymnastics is very hard, competitive, and mentally tough,” Hrynciw said. Hrynciw has been on both the gymnastics and the cheer team for two years, and balancing the two sports has not been easy. “It’s pretty hard, everyday is taken up with something, and my body constantly hurts,” she said.
But at the end of the day, even with all of the bumps and bruises, gymnastics is a lot of fun, both on the team and watching from the stands. “Being around people who understand how difficult the sport is, and having girls that support you no matter the outcome is the best part. And, it’s really cool to see people do
