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This article was original printed in the March 09, 2004 Issue of the Cypress Chronical. This article was written by Arthur Huhta. (We realize many mistakes were made in the article, but it is pasted on this site as it was written!)

Local Gymnast seeks Olympics Team

Shavahn Church hopes to make it to the Olympics by the year 2008.

Fourteen year old Shavahn Church is hopping, skipping, and tumbling towards the 2008 Olympics after qualifying for the USA Gymnastics Women's National Team in 2004.

However, there are many challenges ahead before she makes the U.S. Olympic Team. She is too young to qualify for the team and participate in the 2004 Olympics in Athens. She will train and practice until she is old enough.

Church started practicing gymnastics at seven ago. Her daily routine is to arise at 6:00 a.m., travel 51 miles from Tarzana Calif. to train at SCATS gym in Huntington Beach for nearly seven hours and study for school in her off times.

Her schedule is not without physical pain for she finds it helpful to visit a chiropractor once a week.

Church, a lithe, dark-haired teen is ranked number five in the 2004 American Junior All-Around Gymnastic Standings by USA Gymnastics, the American gymnastics governing body for the US Olympic Team.

When asked about her most rewarding time, "At Nationals on the bar team, I was selected for the Nationals Team."

Her Coach Don Peters said Church is graceful, competitive and a pleasure to watch. "We're hoping to be selected to participate in the Pacific Alliance Competition" Peters said. This championship event will be held at the University of Hawaii April 15 to 17.

Church will attend the June 24 to 27 U.S. Olympic Trials in Anaheim, Calif. if she succeeds at the Pacific Alliance Competition. This is a key event for selecting the six U.S. Olympic female team members. NBC will broadcast the Women's Finals on June 27.

"I like the floor so I can dance" Church said. Gymnastic competition requires participants to perform in 4 events: vaults, bars, beam, and floor. Church said she also likes working on the parallel bars.

She does a unique sequence on the bars said Peters. If she were first to perform this sequence on the bars at a world event, it would be named after her.

Peters said he is proud of the dominant status U.S. gymnasts have in the world arena. He said he does recognize that China and Rumania will field highly competitive teams at the 2004 Olympics in Athens and the U.S. will have to show stellar performance to win the gold.

Peters has been head SCATS coach since 1969 and his favorite memory came during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. "I remember marching into the Coliseum hearing 100,000 screaming Americans," he said. Private programs, such as SCATS offers, provide most of the gymnasts.

Recently, Muriel Grossfeld, an experienced USOC Gymnastics coach and judge, flew in from Connecticut to evaluate Church, but withheld comment about Church's talent.

Muriel notes that most of the funding for USA Gymnastics comes from membership fees. This is supplemented with monies from the US Olympic Committee, corporate sponsorship, and revenue from competitive events