Tracy Press

An international medal in hand, this young Tracy gymnast is ready for state competition.

Hannah Douglas, 10, shows some medals and other awards she has won as an acrobatic gymnastic on the USA Gymnastics Junior Olympics Team. She and her partner, Soffia Metzler, recently won their division at an international acro tournament in Poland, and they’re getting ready for state and national championships closer to home next month. Photo by Bob Brownne/Tracy Press.

She recently returned from the XII International Henryk Chmielewski Spring Tournament in Acrobatic Gymnastics, hosted May 2 through 4 in Swidnica, Poland. She and partner Soffia Metzler of Pleasanton claimed first place in the 11-16 women’s pairs.

At the age of 10, Douglas, a member of the USA Gymnastics Junior Olympics team, is getting used to international competition. She also had a showing at the British Open Tournament in December.

She said the tournament in Poland wasn’t too intimidating, once she had a chance to see what the other gymnasts could do.

“Most of the competition, I’d seen them do their tricks and compared them to mine,” she said, adding that once she’s in front of the judges, she concentrates on her moves and her form.

That got her two consecutive marks of 27.95 out of a possible 30 in each of her routines.

Douglas expects the local events, such as this weekend’s California State Championships in El Dorado, to be tougher.

“Most of all, I know the people, and they expect me to do better at every competition,” she said.

Douglas has marked her calendar for the regional meet, June 21 and 22 at U.C. Riverside, and the National Championships, from July 27 to 31 in Des Moines, Iowa. After that will be another international competition in Glasgow, Scotland, to finish the year.

Practice takes up about 20 hours a week for the Kelly School fourth-grader, but through all of the hard work, her motivation seems obvious.

“I’m a kid,” she said, explaining that just being able to practice and perform acrobatic stunts like she does would appeal to any 10-year-old.

She added that her older sister, Haley Douglas, who introduced her to acrobatic gymnastics, inspires her, as does her partner, who she’s worked with the past three years.

“All of the teenagers in acro, they’re like kids still,” Hannah Douglas explained.

In acrobatic gymnastics, competitors have two types of routines to perform. They don’t use any type of apparatus. Instead, a smaller gymnast will do “dynamic” or “balance” stunts — something similar to Cirque de Soleil — using a larger gymnast or two as a base.

The dynamic stunts are like tumbling routines for duos or groups of three and involve the smaller gymnast going airborne. Balance routines have the larger gymnast holding up the smaller gymnast as she moves into position.

USA Gymnastics sent nine entries to the tournament in Poland, including three from the West Coast Training Center in Livermore. In addition to Douglas and Metzler, the team sent two junior women’s 12-19 trios: Jillian Elizabeth Giblin, Maren Focke and Katie Jo Rodgess, who finished in sixth place, and Mariah Nicole Spray, Kailey Lynn Maurer and Kelly Beth Wilkinson, who finished in 10th place.

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