The Jasper Gymnastics Club got a surprise last week when a gymnastics club from Great Britain called them up looking for a training partner.

The Tolworth gymnastics team was visiting from Great Britain last weekend (April 3) to compete in the Wild Rose International Invitational competition in Edmonton, where they met the Jasper team.

Following the competition, Jasper coach Nadia Wassef said she received a phone call from the team saying they were staying in Jasper for the week, and could they train at their gym.

“They were amazing. They were at quite a bit higher level of gymnastics than my kids are. But they came into the gym they were so genuine, they helped my kids out and got to know each other,” Wassef said.

She said the team was so happy with the Jasper club’s facility and space and enjoyed training with the club so much, they are planning a week-long camp together next year.

The Jasper girls got the chance to watch the advanced English athletes perform in their own gym, and even spent some time working together.

“Madelaine (Britt) actually spent one whole day solely on the bars, she got a lot of help from them – she could hardly move the next day, she was pretty sore!” Wassef said. “They had three coaches with them ... and they were so welcoming, they helped her a lot. When they saw other girls, they said ‘Do you mind if we give them some pointers?’ They always asked if it was appropriate to put some pointers in, it was great.”

The Tolworth team, who Wassef said trains elite athletes, also invited the Jasper team to visit them in Great Britain, something that had the girls and Wassef excited.

The Jasper and Tolworth teams represented two out of three countries that competed at the Wild Rose International Invitational competition on the weekend. The other country was China, which had members of their last Olympic team competing. A team from the U.S. could not make it due to passport issues.

The Wild Rose competition is the biggest in Canada, and Wassef said was a great experience for her girls.

Beating out clubs from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario, Wassef said she was impressed with all the girls’ performances, especially considering the crowd that was in seats at the Northlands AgriCom.

After each girl’s performance and instant replay was shown on the TV screen along with their scores, something the girls had never experienced before.

“It was cool, because you could watch all your mistakes and what you could fix,” said nine-year-old Jasper gymnast Anastasia Gorontzy-Slack.

Besides posting high results – Tannis Potter finished second all around in her category, Emily Lombard finished first and Katy Quackenbush finished first on the floor and fourth all around – one of the highlights for the girls was watching the Chinese Olympians compete.

“Everything they do was done to the absolute perfection that any gymnastic skill can be done, so that’s why they are the best. The degree of difficulty on every event is higher than many other countries,” Wassef said, but added that she thinks that some of their lifestyles aren’t as luxurious as many other countries.

“They don’t necessarily have the greatest life, either. All they do is this, they never see their families. They weren’t perfect in certain areas, and their coach wasn’t very happy with them. So, if you represent China, you gotta be the best all the time,” she said.