More than 1,250 gymnasts from all over North America converged on the Tarkanian Basketball Academy Jan. 20-22 to participate in the 2006 Lady Luck Invitational hosted by Brown's Gymnastics of Las Vegas.
The highlight of the three-day International Gymnastics Hall of Fame competition was the guest appearance of Olympic champions Nadia Comaneci and Bart Conner, who presented all Level 10 gymnasts from the competition with their awards on the evening of Jan. 21.
Comaneci became a household name in the 1976 Summer Olympics when she became the first gymnast at the Olympics to receive a perfect score of 10, a feat she accomplished a total of seven times while representing her native Romania. Comaneci won three gold medals, a silver and a bronze in the games.
Conner also saw his fame increase after winning an individual gold medal for the gold medal-winning U.S. team in the 1984 Summer Olympics and is still the only American male gymnast to have won gold medals at every level of competition. Conner also has won more events than any other American male gymnast in history.
Besides Brown's Gymnastics Las Vegas, several other local clubs participated in the event including Desert Gymcats, Salcianu Gymnastics, Gymcats, Team Las Vegas and Vitaly Scherbo's School of Gymnastics.
Host Brown's wowed the hometown crowd with first-place finishers at several levels with Stephannie Moore leading the way by winning the vault with a 9.625 score in the top Level 10 competition.
Brown's coach Dayna Waroe talked about Moore's winning performance.
"She stuck it cold. And that's what you're looking for," Waroe said. "That's your separator at that kind of a level. You can have 10 great vaults and the kid that sticks it without taking a step is going to be the person that's going to win. And that's right up through the Olympics."
Waroe said Moore's vault came in the right place at the right time.
"She's right now trying to get a college scholarship because she's a junior in high school," Waroe said of the 17-year-old. "So she's going to be looking at a full-college scholarship, which is great. And you know the vault at Lady Luck, we happened to have the coach from Iowa State in our group and (she) saw the vault. So talk about timing."
Brown's finished in eighth place (102.025) in the Level 10 team competition with the Gymcats (106.25) taking fifth place. The Twistars (112.45) from Michigan took first place in the division.
In Level 9 competition, the Gymcats "A" team won the division (109.075) after placing first in both the bars (27.6) and the floor exercise (27.8) competitions, while the Las Vegas club's "B" team finished fifth (106.175) in the division.
Las Vegas gymnasts performed best in the Level 8 competition, where Brown's Level 8 team won the championship in its session, scoring 110.125 points and finishing first in all four events.
Leading the way for Brown's on Level 8 was Sariaye Jensen, who posted first-place finishes in the floor exercise (9.325) and all-around (36.7). Teammate Tiffani Lewis won the floor exercise (9.475) and all-around (36.625) and tied for first in the balance beam (9.05), while Atalyah Pettaway won the vault (9.325), the uneven bars (9.4) and was second in all-around (36.05) behind teammate Lewis.
Waroe was thrilled with Jensen's achievements at Lady Luck as well as her emergence as a quality gymnast over the last three years at Brown's.
"She's actually won every all-around we've been in this year with the exception of San Antonio last weekend," Waroe said of the 12-year-old. "Sariaye is the ugly duckling turning into a swan. Basically, she came into the gym as a compulsory gymnast and wanted to become an optional gymnast and we looked at her and said, 'She doesn't have the flexibility.' All we could see was what she didn't have. And over the past three years this young lady has worked so hard. It's great to see her getting awards."
Waroe talked about all her blossoming talent at Level 8.
"They're awesome. They're very young so they're definitely a work in progress, that team," Waroe said. "And of the four girls, two of them were borderline and were possibly (going to) go Level 8 or Level 7 and we did bump them up to Level 8 and they've just done a great job and shown up at every meet ready to go.
"They're very into team. They really don't care as individuals how they do as long as they do well as a team. And they set goals as a team and work together as a team so seeing them go and win a competition was really neat because they support each other so much."
In their separate session at the meet in Level 8, the local Gymcats "A" team took second place (107.45), while the club's "B" team finished seventh (106.35). Salcianu Gymnastics was 13th (95.65) in the division.
In Level 7 competition, Brown's Emily Srok took first in the vault (9.25) and third in all-around (36.075) with teammate Vanessa Aviles placing third (36.05).
The local Desert Gymcats won the Level 7 competition (109.375), as Skyler Wichart won the uneven bars (9.625) and was first in all-around (37.025).
In Level 6 competition, Brown's had two gymnasts tie for the balance beam championship in Karen Lopez and Alyssa Wilson, who both had scores of 9.3.
Lauren Shead of the Gymcats was the overall winner in her class in Level 6, winning the vault (8.45), uneven bars (8.575), balance beam (9.325), floor exercise (8.6) and all-around (34.95). The Gymcats and Vitaly Scherbo's School of Gymnastics tied for third place in the level with 104.85 scores.
In Level 5 competition, the locals fared very well again with the Gymcats "A" team winning the division by one-tenth of a point (108.425 to 108.325) over Brown's and the Gymcats "C" team finishing one point behind Brown's (107.325) in third place.
Gymcats gymnasts took four of the first five places in all-around scores in their division with Alexi Lawrence finishing first (35.625), Adrianna Warning second (34.825), Alicia Ross third (34.5) and Kennady Schneider fifth (34.25).
Gymcats teammates Tiffany Newell (first, all-around), Sabrina Damon (first, vault), Alyssa Gracia (first, uneven bars and floor exercise), Shen Wu Tan (First, Floor, All Around) and Kelsey Robinson (First, Uneven Bars) all racked up points for their team in their divisions.
Brown's Andrea Perea was first in her Level 5 division in the vault (9.1), balance beam (9.575) and all-around (36.575).
Teammates Taylor Lauten, who won the balance beam (9.575), vault (9.1) and all-around (36.475) in her division, and Destiny Thompson-Cobbs, who finished first in the floor exercise (9.45) contributed to Brown's second-place finish in the division.
At Level 4, Brown's "A" team finished third (110.025) with Salcianu Gymnastics fourth (108.925).
Brown's was led by Nicole Commisso, who finished first in vault (9.25), uneven bars (9.05), floor exercise (9.3) and all-around (36.325).
Waroe talked about the young gymnast's performance at the big meet.
"She did a great job," Waroe said. "She's new to our team so it was really neat for her to go and win our invitational."
Also performing well for Brown's at the Lady Luck on Level 4 were Savannah Schmidt, who took first in the vault (9.225) and uneven bars (9.1) and second in all-around (36.05), and Racel Kimmich, who won the balance beam (9.15) and floor exercise (9.3) and third in all-around (36.175).
Strutting their stuff for the Desert Gymcats at Level 4 were Jennifer Leslie (first, uneven bars and all-around) Grace Donaghy (first, balance beam and floor exercise), Madison Spronk (first, balance beam, floor exercise and all-around), Rebecca Hill (first, vault) and Rebecca Hill (first, uneven bars).
Other locals who performed well in Level 4 competition included Team Las Vegas' Kalia Jackson (tied for second, uneven bars) and Angelina Mosca (first, vault) and the Desert Gymcats' Adriana Silva (first, uneven bars, floor and all-around) and Alexandra Fike (first, balance beam).
The Desert Gymcats dominated Level 4 competition, with its "A" team finishing first (108.975), its "B" team second (105.975), its "C" team taking fourth (103.2) and its "D" team finishing fifth (100.05). Team Las Vegas (103.775) ended up in third place in the division.
Waroe said it meant a lot to all the competitors to have two luminaries like Comaneci and Conner at the event.
"It was really neat," Waroe said. "They did (know who Nadia Comaneci was) once they started seeing pictures of Nadia and you talk about her history and the six perfect 10s and that they understand. They understand the perfect 10. And all of a sudden they see the young lady that got the perfect 10 and it's like, 'Wow! She scored a 10. She scored 10s at the Olympics.' "
Despite holding the meet in Las Vegas and having two of the most-renowned gymnasts on the planet in attendance, Waroe said the Lady Luck was all business for the young gymnasts who attended.
"It was really competitive," Waroe said. "When you're talking 1,200 athletes from all over the country, it's fairly competitive."
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