Angelica Hing plans to shoot for the stars after watching athletes in this year’s Paris Olympics, while celebrating her own milestone accomplishments on the international stage at a young age.
Hing and her team of rhythmic gymnasts from Newmarket and Aurora represented Team Canada, winning bronze in the junior group event finals at the Pan American Championships in Guatemala in June.
“We were all really happy and ecstatic,” said Hing, 14, and a member of the Silhouettes of York Gymnastics Club. “We knew we won the medal and we all wanted to jump up, scream, and celebrate but we knew we had another routine to do, so we still needed to focus. It was nice because our coaches were congratulating us. We were all happy and we made it to that point as a team.”
The team, consisting of Natalie Grigore, Martina Ma, Emily Pimenovsky and Anastacia Sennikov, received a score of 24. Team U.S. received a silver medal with a score of 28 and Brazil took home gold with a score of 30. They also participated in the junior group all around category, falling short to fourth place behind Brazil, U.S. and Mexico.
The team spent a few days training on the carpet and practising their routines involving hoops and clubs. They also studied the teams competing at the event, noticing they were synchronized, flexible, and professional. She was nervous going up against them but knew she had to focus on her team instead.
“Competing in rhythmic gymnastics is difficult because your body needs to be flexible but also strong,” said Hing. “You need to be able to do different movements with your body. You need to have good hand-eye co-ordination because you’re dealing with different apparatuses, as well as manoeuvring your body in different ways.”
Rhythmic gymnastics is an expressive and artistic sport where gymnasts keep their handheld apparatus in constant motion, manoeuvring them with as much variety and speed as possible while performing leaps, jumps, turns, and balances. It includes tossing an apparatus, such as clubs, ball or hoops, several metres into the air and then catching it after losing sight of it while performing leaps and turns. Routines are performed to music on a carpeted area measuring 13 metres by 13 metres.
Hings enjoys the relationships she made with her teammates and being able to express herself through different routines.
“I love being a group and working with those girls because we created a family and long-lasting relationships,” said Hing. “It’s nice to know we’re competing with each other and working with each other. We developed a sisterhood.”
With her eyes set on the Olympics, she is focused on preparing for tournaments she has in the next short while. She knows she has a lot of work to do to reach it.
“The Olympics is the biggest event in an athlete’s career, but I’m taking it one step at a time focusing on the competitions in the country and once I get good enough, maybe the Olympics will be an option. At the moment, probably not.”