When it comes to gymnastics, it seems like no high school in the province can springboard past Argyle Secondary.
After winning the BC Secondary Schools Gymnastics Championships in Delta on March 13 and 14, Argyle racked up its sixth-straight combined team title at the provincial level. That includes four wins before, and two wins after, the provincial sporting body dropped gymnastics from its roster in 2023.
Over the past two years, B.C. high schools continuing to train athletes in the sport have organized their own annual gymnastics tournament. This year, 44 schools with more than 300 athletes competed at the event.
Other North Shore schools were dominant at this year’s championships as well, with Windsor Secondary taking second place and Sutherland Secondary third in the combined team rankings.
From this year’s tournament, Argyle head coach Cath Dimmock highlighted Grade 12 student Brandon Thompson, who was awarded the Louise Chelsey Memorial bursary to carry on with the sport into his post-secondary career.
“In Grade 8, he’d not ever done gymnastics,” Dimmock said. “He’s been on my team for five years and has jumped up five levels and is now competing competitively for Flicka gymnastics club and coaching.”
While Argyle has the largest gymnastics team in the province, Dimmock said her program’s success is more than a numbers game.
“I know that people say that we win because we have the largest team,” she said. “But in fact that’s not true, or we would monopolize every level.”
Instead, all the age categories remain competitive, especially among the North Van schools.
When they leave the North Shore, the athletes feel like they’re competing against club teams rather than school programs, Dimmock said.
Most other high schools won’t take on gymnastics programs, she added.
“So these kids train in clubs, and then when they go to provincials, they just categorize them under their school,” Dimmock said.
After dropping sport, province encourages schools to continue gymnastics programs
Before BC School Sports cut gymnastics in 2023, the provincial sporting body said that gymnastics had moved away from being a school-based sport to a community-based competition.
At that time, around two thirds of registered high school gymnasts were in the Lower Mainland, and not a single school in the Okanagan had a program for the sport, BCSS said.
But the sporting body said that districts and zones should continue to operate programs and competitive opportunities outside of a provincial gymnastics program.
Yet Dimmock said the annual tournament operates much the same as it did before the province dropped gymnastics.
“The only thing that’s changed is we aren’t given any money to run the meet so the kids fees have gone up triple,” she said.
Dimmock, who also runs North Vancouver’s Flicka Gymnastics Club, said the reason why many schools gymnastics programs suffer is because they don’t have volunteers in place.
“I came on 20 years ago because my daughter was going to just head out and try out for the team, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, you need me.’ And that’s how I took over,” she said. “But if somebody like me doesn’t come in, then they don’t have a team.
“Schools won’t support it, so you've got to have volunteers that are willing to run the program. I mean, don’t get me wrong, my husband wishes I got paid 20 years, five months a year,” Dimmock said. “But hey, well I don’t. I’m a volunteer and I love it. I’m not goint to stop.”
Here are individual overall results from top North Shore athletes at this year’s provincials.
Level 3 boys: Heitor Menichelli, Windsor, silver; Charlie Ben Halevi, Argyle, bronze.
Level 4 boys: Martin Kamyab, Carson Graham, gold.
Level 5 boys: Brandon Thompson, Argyle, bronze.
Level 3 girls: Sienna O’Bee, Windsor, bronze.
Level 5 girls: Taylor Dyck, Argyle, silver.
