Gymnastics
Selected at the age of 5 at kindergarten, for 8 years I trained in Soviet Ukrainian "Olympic Reserve" team, which included training every day (except sunday) and 2-3 summer camps with 2-3 trainings a day in some of most beautiful parts of Ukraine, including Odessa and Sevastopol.
At age of 13, when I was already training at the Candidate to Master level (which is one level lower than highest "Olympic" level) and when I had to choose which high school to go to - either to a special school with specialization in gymnastics, which is where all my team mates went, with some of them eventually getting into national Olympic team, or to a mathematics-physics lyceum, I chose the latter and I quit gymnastic. What happened after that - I have become a scientist, but gymnastics is still in my backbone memory and part of my lifestyle.
My highest result was at the junior all-union (USSR) army and navy competition in Alma-Ata (now Kazakstan),
where I flew as part of Ukrainian team from Kiev and where I scored 104,25 points for all-around,
marking the 4 place in Vault with double-twist (720 degrees) round-off jump.
(The photo above shows the page from my Personal Athlete File which testifies this result)
23 years after I quit professional Gymnastic, while doing my regular hands-stands exercised in one of Univ. of Alberta sport-grounds in Edmonton, I was spotted by one of UofA Gymnastics club members who invited me to join the club - both to practice myself and to work with their coaches. Six month later, I was able to practically recover my all floor routine, P-bar and vault, winning 6,5,6 places on those events at all-west Canadian varsity gymnastic meet in Edmonton in 1998. I was the oldest gymnast there, and also the only one who actually was not doing undergrad in Physical Education, but PhD in Computing Science.
40 years after, I am still able to do something... But mainly, I'm able to share all my experience with my children and Ottawa local gymnastic club Les Sittelles, where my children train, which I'm very happy about.
