LAKEPORT, Calif. – Two young gymnasts from Lake County brought home medals for top finishes in a four-state regional championship held last weekend.
Catch Devore, 14, and Tanner Broyles, 13, traveled to Reno on April 9 for the Men’s Region 1 Championships after qualifying at the state meet in Oroville in March.
Region 1 includes all of California, Arizona, Hawaii and Nevada.
The boys train together at Skycatch Gymnastics in Lakeport. The gym is owned by Catch’s parents, Roger and Jerae Devore.
Catch has been training since he was 3 years old, Tanner since he was 6, the boys said.
This was the second year that Catch competed at regionals and the first for Tanner.
Catch had the No. 2 all-around finish. He had first-place performances in the floor exercise, vault and high bar, placed second in the pommel horse, 11th in the rings and 16th in the parallel bars.
Tanner earned a No. 9 finish in the all-around. His placements in the individual events included a fourth place in the vault, a tie for sixth in the pommel horse, seventh place on the high bar, a tie for seventh place on the parallel bars, 11th place on the floor and 14th place on the rings.
Skycatch was among a total of three gyms that had more than one athlete in the top 16 finishers.
This ends this year’s competitive season for the young athletes, whose level six status means that they will not participate in a national competition.
Even so, there is plenty to do back at the gym.
On Wednesday evening, the boys already were back in training, and stopping to look at videos of their performances in Reno.
Tanner waited until the regionals championship to perform his first “giant” – the skill that involves rotating 360 degrees on the high bar – in competition. He had managed his first giant only a few days before the event.
Recalling his experience at the championships, Catch said, “It was just fun.”
He added, “There’s definitely some level of excitement, and really maintaining and mitigating that excitement and adrenaline and focusing it into something beautiful and artistic is a skill in itself.”
Catch said that he felt he had his best performance on the vault, one of his first-place finishes.
Tanner said it felt like just another meet.
Making his giants for the first time was his best moment of the competition, he said.
Now, he’s looking forward to getting bigger skills, such as giants and a double backflip off the high bar.
Roger Devore said the boys are known for their clean, strong skills, which are the result of patience, hard work and dedicated skill development.
As a result, Catch and Tanner are in the top 10th of the competitive gymnasts in Region 1, which Devore called the “most packed and stacked” region in the country.
Now, they’re going to begin training in new skills, including multiple flipping and twisting, Devore said.
“We’re going to train all summer,” said Devore.
Devore said the young athletes are having run reaching for the bigger skills, which they already were learning on Wednesday.
“We’re growing the body, mind and spirit,” Devore said.
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