With such an exciting journey ahead of us, it is important to reflect on our past season. We attended three workshops/camps, seven competitions and performed many times locally and also outside our community. This past season brought us many exciting travelling experiences and opportunities to learn and promote the sport of jump rope.

May was a busy month for our team. The Canadian National Championship was held in beautiful British Columbia at a fantastic university. We all were very successful at this competition. Eamonn placed first overall in Canada in his age division. We were all very pleased with our finishing results and proud of Eamonn’s accomplishment. As soon as the competition was completed, we were on the road to Seattle, Washington. We had an opportunity to work one on one with a jump rope world champion/gymnastic instructor to improve our gymnastic skills and perfect our routines for our next competition. The whole trip was an amazing experience and reward for all our months of training and hard work. We even had the honour of staying in the “Jump Rope Hotel”.

In July, we were on our way to World Jump Rope Championship and Camp held in Orlando, Florida. This was our biggest competition of the season, what we had been training months for. The layout of this competition was relaxing yet challenging. The events were spread out over five days which made it easier physically but harder mentally to stay focused. Everyone did more than just compete. We judged, instructed, assisted in running the competition area all while learning many new skills. The atmosphere was very positive. Everyone was happy to share the love of the sport that we are all passionate about. We had very positive team results. Meghan and Jocelyn placed first in a pairs event which moved them into the Grand World Championship. They competed against the top six pairs at the competition and again they took first place, coming home with a beautiful crystal trophy. With only one day off, we participated in a three day camp. We were never happier to work hard with sore muscles!!

At the end of July, Meghan travelled to Des Moines, Iowa to participate in the AAU Junior Olympic Games with three athletes from different regions of Ontario. Meghan had great results in individual and team events, placing in all categories she competed in. It was a good experience competing with athletes other than her regular teammates.

With such a fulfilling past season, we are taking our gained experiences, personal knowledge and team growth forward to this upcoming season. All of these accomplishments will be relied on to help us reach our ultimate goal of competing at the World Jump Rope Championships in Paris, France.

For us, as a team, to reach our goal of competing in Paris, we have developed a plan on how we are to achieve this. There will be many stops along the way on our exciting journey to France. We will be performing as often as possible in our community, planning various fundraisers to help raise the necessary money and competing whenever we can to gain experience.

To compete in Paris may be our ultimate goal for this season however; our ongoing objective is to share our love of rope skipping with as many people as possible. To accomplish this, we will be expanding our team and sharing our skills that have been developed over many years of training.

We are always grateful for the continuing support of our family and friends, school custodians and staff, members of our community and local businesses. They have all helped us to continue in accomplishing our goals.