Story by Near Post Sports In the 2020 Olympic Games in Japan, each country’s best competes on an international level. Those who win gold, silver, and bronze in Tokyo are champions of the most elite and they all climbed through the junior ranks in their independent sports to achieve that glory.
Locally, there’s a 12-year-old male gymnast bouncing along a similar trajectory, complete with selection as an alternate on the U.S. World Championship team and a silver medal from an age-group national championship meet.
But, let’s not slather this story with expectations of Olympic glory. So far, it’s clear West Fowler has a knack for flippity-flipping in two different gymnastic sports – artistic, like the well-known Olympic events, and the trampoline and tumbling (T&T), which doesn’t have quite the following in the United States.
Americans figured prominently in the women’s artistic gymnastics events this last week – think Suni Lee and Simone Biles. However, zealous Olympics watchers saw Nicole Ahsinger of Lafayette, La., finish sixth in trampoline Friday, and male Aliaksei Shostak of Lafayette, La., was 13th Saturday in Tokyo. Trampoline was first competed at the 2000 Sydney Games. The United States has yet to medal in this Olympic event.
The trampoline community is small. “He (West) knows these people. They know each other. The compete together,” father and coach Blaine Fowler said. “They’re not buddies by any means, but they all know each other.”
At the Louisiana state championships earlier this year, the pre-teen athlete was in the same elite rotation as Ahsinger and Shostak, Fowler said.
West got a front-row (literally) view of senior elites performing their routines.
“It’s insane standing next to them watching them jump that high, doing my hardest trampoline pass as their easiest,” West said. “I’m slowly, slowly catching up to them. (I’ve been) training my butt off, to hopefully – one day – go to worlds or the Olympics. Who knows? The dream is … hopefully, go to the Olympics. Even for like one event. I’d be happy.”
Competing out of the Panhandle Perfection gym in Gulf Breeze, West is coached by his parents, Allie and Blaine Fowler. In the artistic hierarchy, the gymnast is a level 8. Yet, he competes as a youth elite in the T&T community.
The 2021 season has been a split schedule for West. Instead of the two separate seasons – artistic and T&T – they ran concurrently and he bounced between the two. And each’s national championship meet was held in June.
“This season was compressed on one end due to Covid and on the other end because of the Olympics,” Blaine said. “So, we basically did a whole season, a full, full season in about seven to eight weeks of both artistic and trampoline and tumbling.”
West termed his performance at the artistic championships in Birmingham, Alabama, “not terrible.” It was at the T&T meet in Daytona where the fireworks took place. West finished seventh in individual trampoline for youth elite 13-14-year-old age group. He then finished on the podium, taking silver, in the double-mini trampoline.
“Which is really cool for me, because I’ve done pretty well through the season. But that was the best place I’ve gotten,” the 4-foot 11-inch, 102-lbs. gymnast said. “I threw a new pass, so that was good. That upped my difficulty a little bit more. I landed it, and … I thought the pass was going to be good. The score came up, and it was good. But it was just another meet. It was a fun experience to go out there and be on the podium.”
There are three events in T&T – double-mini trampoline, trampoline, and tumbling.
Although he took second in the nation in double-mini, he prefers the trampoline.
“Because it’s flipping and jumping 15-20 feet in the air. It’s just really fun to do two flips and twisting out of it,” he said.
Blaine says many artistic gymnasts use the trampoline to develop their skills and improve aerial awareness. However, West is very good at it, despite extremely limited practice time. The gym has a trampoline, but users can’t jump very high due to a low ceiling.
There are six events in artistic gymnastics – floor exercise, parallel bars, vault, rings, horizontal bar, and pommel horse. The horizontal bar is his favorite. “‘cause you spin around like a monkey,” he said.
On the other end of the spectrum is pommel horse “I bang my knees into the pommel horse. I have so many bruises,” West said, pointing to seven dime-, quarter-, and larger-size bruises on his left knee.
Watching him navigate his off-season, daily routine at the Panhandle Perfection gym is jaw-dropping. He literally bounced from warm-ups, to floor passes, vault, rings, pommel horse, double-mini, intermixed with quick diversions over to the large trampoline, and last, a few turns on the parallel bars. At the end, he was curled up, relaxing on one of the large pads by the balance beams.
The father-coach explained that the youthful firecracker gets tired, it’s more mentally than physically. He explained that although the movements are similar – flipping and spinning – there are differences that West has to constantly think about. At the T&T championship meet, fresh from his artistic national meet, a break in concentration between the two styles ended badly, according to Blaine.
Although West landed four double-backs in warmups, it was a new pass. “I was doing really well with them,” West said. “And when we go to competition, I land a little short. I land on my face.”
The video made it look more gruesome than it turned out to be, Blaine said.“Tumbling and trampoline isn’t physically exhausting as artistic is. It’s harder for him mentally, because he doesn’t get the chance to do it in the gym much. So, it not as automatic for him. He’s having to think and be like mentally ready the whole time. That’s where he’s exhausted.”
West is due to turn 13 in a month-or-so, and he digs both artistic and T&T. “All it is is being upside down,” he said.
He’s also not interested in choosing between the two gymnastics disciplines, nor does his father think it’s time to do so.
“The trampoline community thinks of him as an artistic gymnast, and the artistic community thinks of him as a trampoline and tumbling gymnast. He doesn’t really catch a break on either side, because he’s not committed to either side. I don’t see it as a commitment issue. I just see him as doing nine events as opposed to six events for artistic or three for trampoline and tumbling. He’s a nine-event gymnast. I see these as all the same thing.
“It is challenging for kids to do both. You’ve got to make a decision at some point, but why (now)? Go as long as we can, if it’s working. Maybe he’s be better on one than the other right now, but is that really going to matter? I’ll kick myself if it costs him an Olympic opportunity at some point, but that’s so few and far between that a lot of things have to fall into the cards just right for that to happen. There are going to be other factors. I’m not worried about him doing both.”
All Photos by Stu Camp
