Young gymnast to compete at nationals

WASILLA — Given her success in gymnastics, Alisandra Marvel’s surname serves her well.

The 15-year-old Marvel has come to call Denali Gymnastics her second home, after 10 years of working with owners Sandy and Lynn Reynolds, coach Melissa Chan and spotter Ryan Childers. Having spent few hours outside gym walls, it comes as no surprise that Miss Marvel is on her way to the 2015 U.S. Women's National Junior Olympic Championships in Indianapolis this week.

“She moved up the ranks really fast,” Sandy Reynolds said.

Reynolds could tell after Marvel’s first day that she and two others — Jade Chan, who is out with an injury at the moment, and Kortney Shaw, who is finishing up at the U.S. Women’s Western Championship this week — were ready for the competitive track.

“They (had) the desire and they (had) the determination,” Reynolds said. “They were willing to put in the time.”

Marvel’s school schedule has even been formed to fit her practice schedule to optimize her training. After attending traditional high school classes from about 7 to 11 a.m., Marvel gets dropped off at the gym, sits down for lunch, then heads to the mats for practice at noon. Four hours later, Marvel takes her position as coach for beginning and intermediate gymnasts, most of whom are about her age or even older.

And all this takes place five days a week.

Reynolds said Denali’s gymnastics program prepares young gymnasts to be coaches by design. But even if the program didn’t encourage it, the athletes would want to do it anyway.

“It’s just a natural progression that they’re gymnasts, and then they want to teach,” Reynolds said.

And they’re good at it, she said.

“They’re very patient, ’cause they’ve been through the ranks themselves,” Reynolds said.

And now Marvel has truly been through all the ranks there are in the Junior Olympic division. This year she competed at regions as a level-10 athlete for the first time, meaning her performance would send her straight to nationals (as opposed to Westerns) or nowhere at all.

Marvel said she wasn’t too nervous going into the competition, but upon entering the gym, her stomach tied in knots. While in previous competitions she and other athletes had performed their events in Olympic order — vault, bars, beam, floor — this time, beam fell at the end of the list.

She loves floor, she really likes vault, and even the bars are “pretty good.” But beam scares her, she admitted.

“That’s the one I don’t like … so I was just kinda thinking about that the whole meet,” Marvel said.

Marvel said she “wasn’t expecting to make nationals” because she “barely made regionals” last year, and the event order change weighed heavily on her mind. But she did make it, even with one fall.

Reynolds said part of the reason the beam daunts Marvel is because “she’s doing the hardest tricks.”

Marvel said she doesn’t do as many reps of the beam series during a regular practice week as she does for series in the other events, either. But her coaches are confident that she can perform them, so she still gets to demonstrate them at meets.

The national meet, however, could be a whole different ball game.

“I don’t know how many girls I’ll be competing against, but it’ll be a lot more than I’m used to,” Marvel said.

Whatever happens, she’ll have years of competition ahead of her. Marvel said she’s “always wanted to do college gymnastics,” in part for the social, team aspect. Although Marvel has a team of sorts at Denali, they don’t often see each other outside of meets, since their schedules don’t match up. And going into the national meet, the six or seven girls from Region II — which includes Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Montana and Hawaii — don’t exactly have the means to really become a team before they have to compete as one.

But though Marvel’s chosen sport can sometimes be lonesome, she wouldn’t trade it for another.

“I wouldn’t wanna do another sport,” even if it would mean more time to relax with friends, she said.

So she’s not stopping now. After all, there’s still more progress to be made as a level-10 gymnast in the coming year, Marvel said.

“I just wanna try my hardest and get new skills,” she said.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.