Gymnast second at Nationals, but isn't granted one of two spots on Canadian team
June 14, 2008 - 12:00
By Brad Kelly
Kristina Vaculik is not going to the Olympic Games, and debate is raging whether that's fair or not.
The teenage gymnast from Whitby isn't the first athlete to just miss out on the opportunity to fulfill her dream at the largest international sporting spectacle in the world, nor will she be the last. For some, they come up just short, not quite as good as the others, and the exclusion from representing their country is understandable based on an inferior performance.
That is where the debate about Vaculik becomes interesting.
At the Canadian Gymnastics Championships held in Calgary, Vaculik established herself as the best gymnast in the country at the senior level.
She won the preliminary competition on day one and finished second in the all around final the following day. That result in the all around should have been the determining factor in granting the two spots on the Olympic team. For good measure, she wrapped up the competition on day three with two golds and two silvers in the apparatus finals. It should be noted that in the event finals, rising star Peng-Peng Lee, a junior aged gymnast, competed at the senior level, winning the gold medal in the two events (beam and floor) in which Vaculik won silver.
In other words, if Lee had competed in her own age group, Vaculik would have won gold in all four apparatus finals.
Unfortunately for Vaculik, the Canadian Gymnastics Federation does not recognize the Canadian championships as the qualifying meet for the Olympics. Instead, a point system the national governing body adopted was used to determine the two gymnasts who would represent Canada in Beijing.
Points were given based on results from designated national and international competitions from September 2007 to June 2008, as well as participation in and results from previous world competitions. Based on that system, Nansy Damianova and Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs will wear Canada's colours in Beijing.
The catch here is that Vaculik wasn't age eligible to compete in previous world competitions, preventing her from earning valuable points. Despite a late push she finished a close third.
The selection process has sparked an outrage within the gymnastics community, and by midweek, a thread on a website discussing the process had stretched to five pages. The underlying theme is that the selection process is flawed, the administration overseeing the sport should be fired, and Vaculik should take her proper place on the Canadian team going to the Olympics.
The Olympics is about being your best on the day you demand it. Vaculik proved she has it within her resolve to do that, and is one of the top two gymnasts in the country when it should have mattered most.
Yet, she gets third class status, and for that, will be home watching the Olympics on TV instead of competing, which she so richly deserved.