Athletic Excellence Abounds As GA-Allstars
Have Success At History Making Meet!
Written And Photographed By Coleen Lou

As most of us know, athletic excellence is not easy to achieve in any sport, but this is especially true in the demanding sport of gymnastics. It is a sport in which petite little bodies exhibit incredible muscle strength, precision muscle control and tremendous stamina, combined with unbelievable flexibility. But in addition to all of that, the real secret to being a “perfect 10” is to make those difficult displays of extraordinary athleticism look graceful and easy. By the way, did I mention you should smile at the same time? Well apparently, GA-Allstars Gymnastics has what it takes to do just that and displayed their skills recently at the biggest meet in their history, the Spring Break-Out Invitational Meet.

Almost 2000 gymnastics fans, 355 competing gymnasts, representing 25 USA and AAU teams from all over the Southeastern United States as well as, 9 local high schools came to compete at the Spring Break-Out Meet. The event was run by GA-Allstars gymnastics Center and held at Lassiter High School, whose high school gymnastics team has the benefit of training at the GA-Allstars facility by the good graces of its owner, Becky Oppenheimer. Even the prominent and nationally esteemed, Hills Gymnastics Center’s team came to the event. Hills Gymnastics is the Maryland gymnastics center that trained Dominique Dawes, who of course went on to become a 1996 US Olympian and member of the first ever, gold medal USA Team, affectionately known as the Magnificent Seven, as well as the 2003 U.S. Gymnastics All-Around National Champion, Courtney Kupets.

In addition to the tremendous success of the GA-Allstars teams, what made this event even more special was that as far as USAG Judge and Owner of GA-Allstars, Becky Oppenheimer knows, it was the first time in Georgia history that a USA and AAU Gymnastics invitational event was held, in conjunction with a High School Gymnastics Invitational Meet. With 3 different gymnastics associations represented it was triple the competition and flipping fun. “We were thrilled to be able to organize and run this invitational event. This was no easy feat and required great cooperation. We broke all barriers and even crossed county lines, so that these high school athletes would have a quality facility at which to practice and still be able to compete on their own turf, with their home crowd at Lassiter High School, as well as raise money for their high school booster club, ” said Ms. Oppenheimer, who was also the Meet Director for the event. Nine local High Schools attended from Cobb, Fulton, Cherokee and Bartow Counties. Five GA-Allstars gymnasts also represented their high school team (Lassiter) and they took home the team gold. One gymnast also competes for Sequoyah (Cherokee County) and another competes for Etowah (Cherokee). It is quite an unusual mix, but it works and everyone participated Friday night for their respective high school and came out a winner!

In addition to having its team members shine for the local high schools, GA-Allstars had a wonderful showing with its Level 4 AAU taking 1st place with a team score of 112.175. Head coach of the Level 4 AAU team, Tish Opie beamed with pride, “I am so proud of them. This is a very young team with an average age between 6-8 years old. They have made immense improvement since last year and every meet they continue to improve. We had our highest team score for AAU 4 in GA-Allstars history.” One great contribution to this team score was made by Haylee Young, who had an amazing meet taking 1st on Bars with a 9.725, Beam with a 9.325, Vault with a 9.1, All-Around with a 37.425 and 2nd on Floor with a 9.275!

GA-Allstars Level 4 AAU 1st Place Team