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Sitkan Coaches Gymnasts at Arctic Games

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By GARLAND KENNEDY

Sentinel Sports Editor

Under the instruction of Sitka gymnastics coach Trisha Bessert, four young Alaskans earned the top award at the Arctic Winter Games earlier this month in Wood Buffalo, Alberta, Canada.

Alaskan gymnasts jump in unison earlier this month at the Arctic Winter Games in Wood Bison, Alberta. From the left are Alia McKinnon, Jillian Beckley, Emma Marsh and Lyza Krozel. (Photo provided by Trisha Bessert)

Initially tapped for the coaching position in October, Bessert assembled her team through the fall. She picked two athletes from Anchorage, one from Wasilla and another from Fairbanks.

The group had no previous experience as a team, but came away with the Gold Ulu – the highest award of the games.

“We got the Gold Ulu, so we were the Arctic Winter Games champions… Usually Alaska comes in second or third,” Bessert told the Sentinel. “Alberta usually wins. So it was a pretty big accomplishment for Alaskan gymnasts to win.” At the individual level the Alaska girls got 12 out of 15 possible medals, Bessert said. All of her gymnasts were teenagers, ranging from 13 to 16 years old.

While the games drew more than 2,000 athletes from across the world’s arctic regions, only 16 were gymnasts. Bessert has coached for about two decades and currently works at Mt. Edgecumbe High.

She described the games as “a mini-Arctic Olympics for developing athletes.”

When recruiting her team, Bessert searched for experienced gymnasts with potential for further improvement.

“For the Arctic Winter Games, we’re not looking for elite athletes,” she said. “We’re looking for developing athletes… at the beginning of their competitive journey, where they branch out… where they get a little bit of independence to get their own routines instead of doing the same routine as everybody else.”

Alaska’s gymnastics team included Alia McKinnon, Jillian Beckley, Emma Marsh and Lyza Krozel.

“We had a really strong, all-around team,” the coach said. “And, I think, an unexpected outcome on the uneven bars. Prior to the meet, we had a couple of girls who, I would say, were weaker on bars… The team still had so much depth, and I really looked at their skills… and then they came out and they all killed bars.”

The Arctic Winter Games, which ran from Jan. 29 to Feb. 4, were a new experience for Bessert, but coaching gymnasts was nothing novel.

“I’ve got 20-some years experience coaching high level gymnasts. I was really excited. It was fun to put together a team of mostly strangers… and bring them together as a team and succeed in a situation where, for all of them, it was their first time out of the country,” Bessert said. “And it was their first time not being coached by their coaches… That, I think, made a big difference too, they just put their trust in me and their coaches back at home put their trust in me to send their gymnasts in the middle of competition season with a different coach.”

The arctic games include such sports as basketball, Dene games - inspired by traditional Indigenous athletic activities - wrestling, and biathlon skiing as well as gymnastics, with competitors representing countries that have arctic regions. Russian athletes were not invited this year because of Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, an Alberta newspaper reported.

The diverse array of participants offered a positive experience for Alaska’s team, Bessert said.

“It was really exciting for the kids, and culturally enriching,” Bessert said. “And what was amazing about this year’s games is we were in a big complex for housing. So they weren’t spread out at schools this year, we were all in the same building. And every night, you would have mingling with other athletes, and becoming friends.”  The athletes traded decorative pins as well, and there was an informal competition to see who could accumulate more. The games took place in Fort McMurray, in the Wood Buffalo region of northern Alberta.

Along with a number of medals for gymnastic events, Emma Marsh, of Anchorage, won the Fair Play pin.

Alaska’s gymnastics team poses for a photo at the Arctic Winter Games in Alberta this month. Coach Trisha Bessert stands to the right. (Photo provided)

“There are 35 of them, and it’s awarded to people that have displayed ultimate sportsmanship,” the coach said. “And there’s 2,000 athletes. And one of my gymnasts got the Fair Play pin award… It’s a really great feeling when your all-around champion also displayed ultimate sportsmanship,” Bessert said.

“To have her up on that podium representing the state of Alaska and the United States of America – I couldn’t think of a better person to be up there,” she said.

Two athletes from Mt. Edgecumbe High also were at the games, but not for the gymnastics events, she added.

Gymnastics programs in Sitka have come and gone, but Bessert said a tumbling program will begin this summer under the city’s newly expanded Parks and Recreation program. Information is available at recreation@cityofsitka.org.

“They heard about me and caught my name through the Arctic Winter Games process, and that I coached gymnastics… (and) reached out asking me if I would coach a tumbling program in the summer, which Sitka had lost. And now there’s going to be a tumbling program this summer.”