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Trip of a lifetime for Delta gymnasts

Boys contingent leaves Saturday for extensive training sessions in China
gymnastics
Nine athletes from Delta Gymnastics competitive men's program leave Saturday for China where they will have an opportunity to experience how one of the sport's world powers trains.

Nine athletes from Delta Gymnastics will have an experience of a lifetime, leaving this weekend on a training trip to China.

"The trip is organized by coach Gao, who has a variety of connections in China," explained Mike Hood, Delta Gymnastics Men's Competitive Program Coordinator. "Six of our boys will stay for two weeks and three will stay for a month.  The purpose of this trip is for the boys to experience how the best athletes in the world train and what kind of effort and focus it takes for an athlete to reach international level success."

The boys, who will travel with their coaches but not their parents, are between the ages of 10 and 19 years of age and currently train between 16 and 24 hours per week. They include:  Que Bidewell, Hunter Woodhead, Nicholas Pham, Ryan Woodhead, Cole Schallig, Caleb Richmond,  Alex Farquharson, Conor Edgson and Russell Woodward.

All will be staying at the Suzhou City Children Amateur Sports School — a boarding school for athletes located about two hours west of Shanghai. It develops national level athletes in sports like badminton, diving, tae kwon do, swimming and gymnastics.

“For many of the boys, this is the first time they travelling to China, and the first time they travel without their parents.  Besides their weeks of training, they will also be experiencing the culture by living and interacting with other children and youth. They will visit ancient cities and sights, and they will even learn how to make dumpling,” added Hood.

Besides Suzhou, the local contingent will also train at Wuxi City, a city 20 minutes away from Suzhou. Two years ago, a group of Suzhou athletes came to Vancouver and trained at the Delta Gymnastics facility in Ladner.

“I'm excited about this trip; it will be really good to see how these athletes train. They are very serious about their training," said Bidewell, 12, from Tsawwassen. “I'm sure I will get a little homesick but it will go by quickly.  I'm pretty adventurous about food so I think I will be fine to try new things."

The group will leave on Saturday June 13, accompanied by their coaches. "They don't speak a lot of Mandarin but they all know how to say thank you,” laughed Hood.

Delta Gymnastics is located at the Delta Sports Development Centre in Ladner.  They offer programs from ages 18 months to adults.  For information visit deltagymnastics.com.