DYER | They don't take everyone.
So when 9-year-old Amanda Weinand, of Lowell, was named to the JumpStart National Team, which spotlights nationwide potential in trampoline and tumbling, she knew that she was in select company.
"It was a lot of hard work, but also a lot of fun," said the Three Creeks School fourth-grader, who was among the athletes between the ages of 7-12 chosen to train at the JumpStart National Team Training Center this summer in Huntsville, Texas.
Weinand earned the right after making the cut of 50 selected from a field of 500 at the JumpStart regional testing last fall. Then during the weekend of Jan. 12-13 at the JumpStart National Training Camp in Dallas, the field was whittled down to the final 21.
"It was great meeting and working with the national coaching staff," Weinand said. "It was also fun to meet other athletes who love (this) as much as I do."
The JumpStart program is part of USA Gymnastics, the national governing body for gymnastics in the United States. At the regional and national camps, the athletes were tested for strength, flexibility, general fitness, speed, explosiveness and compulsory skills.
"It helps targets potential Olympians," said Hayley Butcher, who coaches Weinand with former world-class trampoliner Oleg Fedosov at Midwest Training and Ice Center.
"Amanda is incredible," said Butcher, who fell short of making the USA Olympic Team in the trampoline after placing fourth at the preceding Olympic Trials last spring. "She is such a dedicated hard-working athlete. She is very focused."
Weinand has been training in gymnastics since she was 3 years old.
"I just do trampoline and tumbling," Weinand said, She said she prefers those over the uneven bars, balance beam, floor exercise and vault apparatuses of artistic gymnastics.
"I like trampoline the best," she said. "I like to jump high in the air."
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