Challenge: A small fish in a big pond
by Deborah Nobes
for CBC Sports Online

The little girl in the sparkly red bodysuit counts to three, takes a deep breath and hurls herself at top speed toward a vault nearly twice her size.

Chelsea Beauchemin, 15, flips neatly over the apparatus and lands her routine with a small step and a giant grin. This young athlete has practiced 18 hours a week for the last four years to prepare for the artistic gymnastics event at the 2003 Canada Games, and as the only gymnast for Team Yukon, is more than pleased with her performance.

15-year-old Chelsea Beauchemin is Team Yukon's sole competitor in artistic gymnastics

Her mother Charlene, a member of Yukon's mission staff, watches Chelsea nervously, videotaping the competition from the sidelines.

"It's always a little nerve-wracking to watch your child compete," she admits. "But she's doing really well. It's a little harder when you don't have teammates with you."

Every province in Canada has fielded at least seven female gymnasts for the artistic event at the Canada Games. Most provinces held qualifying events for aspiring team members, selecting the best of the best athletes from a large pool and cutting the rest.

But Yukon has only one reasonably-sized city, Whitehorse, which has only one gym. The city's gymnastics club has about 30 members and of all those, Chelsea is the only one with enough skill to hold her own at a national competition.

At the team finals, Chelsea -- team of one -- is scoring on par with some of the best gymnasts from the most populous regions of Canada. Despite the thundering crowd noise seeping in from the hockey game in the rink next door, she performs near flawless routines on the uneven bars and floor, stumbling only a little on her vault and beam events.

Her coach, Kelly Mock, who trains the Yukon Polarettes and Polar Tumblers, says the Canada Games is helping Chelsea understand how her skills compare with the rest of the country.

"I think it's a little bit challenging because she has no source of reference about how good the quality of her gymnastics really is," he says. "In Whitehorse, she's a big fish in a small pond, obviously. When she comes down here she really has no idea how she's going to stack up until she gets out there and has a chance to see what other gymnasts are doing. Now she gets to see how good she actually is."

Artistic gymnastics is a lot about looking pretty while making difficult athletic movements seem effortless. The athletes compete in flashy suits with sewn-on sequins and see-through sleeves, wearing sparkly eye-shadow and with their hair pulled back into elaborate updos.

But don't let the pretty package fool you. These young women are at the top of a sport that requires incredible strength, concentration and courage. They are judged without mercy -- one crooked toe means lost points -- on both technical skill and the more ephemeral artistic merit.

Chelsea in the middle of her floor routine in Bathurst

They flip and spin with taped wrists and ankles, launching themselves into the air with speed and grace and no small amount of danger. For these young girls, artistic gymnastics is the closest they will ever get to actually flying.

That's what attracted Chelsea to the sport nearly eight years ago, when she was just seven. "I had a lot of energy and I wanted to be able to flip," she says.

Her coach says she's progressed a long way from that skill, and believes she's a contender for Canada's national team.

"She has a certain amount of artistry. She has a good bodyline and nice body posture. She's a very elegant, graceful gymnast," he says. "She never really ceases to amaze me. She's a great competitor and she looked outstanding today."

For Chelsea, dreams of being on the national team seem a long way off. She's just happy to be part of this competition, and thrilled she performed at the top of her game.

"I'm really happy because I worked so hard to be here, and I'm really proud of how I did today," she says.