Perfection: Cheyenne Gymnastics once again sends every athlete to state championships

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (Wyoming News Now) - Cheyenne Gymnastics is a gym that’s generated sustained excellence in the sport.

Athletes from the age of 2 to 18 progress their skills relative to how old they are, and for both coaches and gymnasts alike the growth is gratifying to see.

“[It’s rewarding] just seeing them do well. They do a lot of difficult skills. To see their hard work pay off, compete well, and place first, second third. It just you know gives you all the warm fuzzy feelings,” Program Director and Head Coach Shannon Mitchell said.

Eleven year old Ayla Crystal mentioned that her favorite part of coming to practice is always being able to improve.

“If I get a skill really good, [I like] trying to work on upgrading skills,” Crystal said.

That hard work has culminated in the gym once again qualifying every athlete on the team for the Wyoming State Championships. All 53 gymnasts will make the trip to Sheridan this weekend to compete in the event, which can set up many to travel to regionals in Texas.

Aside from the time commitment to their craft, there are a lot of other things these gymnasts have to work through that makes this feat even more impressive.

High school senior Gracie Dillow suffered a serious knee injury last year, and said it was a difficult road to recovery. She’s back now though for her last states with Cheyenne Gymnastics, and wants to make the most of it.

”Gymnastics is hard even without injuries. Because you’re doing stuff that logically doesn’t work really well. It was hard to come back. Because every single time you do something I was telling myself that I’d get injured, and every single time I did something it freaked me out. So it’s been hard... I’m only doing one event just because of my injury. So being able to hit that event hard and make sure I do it well means a lot,” Dillow said.

Congratulations to everyone in the Cheyenne Gymnastics program on their success this year.

Copyright 2023 KGWN. All rights reserved.