Coaches at a Lake Highlands gymnastic facility are beaming with pride for a student recently selected to attend a national training camp geared for potential Olympians.
Metroplex Gymnastic student Amy Holbert is Metroplex’s first student selected as one of 82 girls participating in the National TOPS Training Camp, says Metroplex coach Zachary Thomas.
“Amy was a kid who came in, and she wasn’t a kid who caught your eye,” Thomas says. “But as she moved through the system, she started working harder and harder.”
Amy, 9, became involved in gymnastics when she was 6 years old and learned almost everything she knows at Metroplex, where she has trained for the past three years.
Gymnasts must advance through six ranking levels (from 5 to 10) prior to being selected for Elite training. The U.S. Olympic team is hand-picked from only Elite trainers, and Amy has advanced to level 9.
Amy attended her first national training camp last month.
“It was really fun,” Amy says. “I worked with national coaches. Some of the coaches were Olympians, and others had coached Olympians.”
Amy recently enrolled in a Plano gymnastics facility after her Metroplex coaches told her she needed to train with Olympic-bound gymnasts, Thomas says.
“Her goal is like any other kid her age who works as hard as she does,” Thomas says. “She wants to go to the Olympics.”
Olympic-bound students train for four events, including the vault, bars, beam and floor, Thomas says.
Amy says her hardest event is the beam, but her difficulty with it apparently doesn’t show.
“I’d have to say her strongest event is the beam,” Thomas says.
Metroplex Gymnastics, 9858 Chartwell, has been in Lake Highlands for the past 20 years and has more than 800 students enrolled in its gymnastic classes year-round. For information, call 214-343-8652.
