Barry Wright
Dave Brubaker has had a front row seat for the upward rise of Canada's national artistic women's gymnastics team.
As National Team Director, the Sarnia resident was on hand last week when Team Canada placed sixth in the team finals at the World Gymnastics Championships in Glasgow, Scotland to qualify directly for the Olympics in Rio next year.
“We haven't had a result like that in the team competition since 1989,” beamed Brubaker, the long time club director at Bluewater Gymnastics on the Golden Mile.
“It's a huge result for Canada and a very impressive result by the team.”
The U.S. won the team event, followed by China, Great Britain, Russia and Japan rounding out the top five ahead of Canada.
Ellie Black of Halifax finished seventh in the All-Around Final, an improvement of eight spots over our previous best finish in that event.
“The top team, the U.S.A, is very dominant and after that it's wide open,” said Brubaker when asked what the latest result could mean for Canada's fortunes at the Summer Games next year.
“We have a team strategy and we are capable of improving. I'm not sure we'll move up into a medal position, but if not in Rio, it'll certainly be in the next 4-8 years,” he confidently stated.
Dominique Pegg of the Bluewater Gymnastics Club and her Team Canada mates placed fifth in the team competition at the Olympics in London in 2012, finishing behind the U.S., Russia, China and Romania, but ahead of both Great Britain and Japan.
Brubaker was surprised that Romania, which finished third at the Olympics in 2012, did not finish in the top eight in Glasgow and will now need to qualify by placing in the top four of a pre-Olympic event next April in Rio.
Brubaker says a weeklong training camp for the Canadian women's team in Sarnia this past summer prior to the Pan Am Games in Toronto played a large part in preparing the group for its recent success.
“It provided a perfect opportunity for us to assemble the team in a really nice environment, without the traffic, the high parking fees and so on and so forth,” said Brubaker.