Halifax's Ellie Black named to third Olympic women's gymnastics team

A third time is a charm for Halifax’s Ellie Black.

To no one’s surprise, the 25-year-old Black – Canada’s most decorated women’s artistic gymnast – was named to her third Olympic team during a Gymnastics Canada event held in Montreal on Thursday.

“I am beyond thrilled and proud to be representing Canada at my third Olympic Games,” Black said in a news release. “I am grateful for the opportunity to head to Tokyo with this great team to show what we can do. We have some new fresh energy on this team along with experience so I think it’ll be exciting for all of us.

“I’m very proud of all the girls on our Canadian team. This past year wasn’t an easy one but together we overcame, persevered, adapted and supported one another to get to this point.”

She’s part of a wave that’s really changing the trend in women’s gymnastics towards the athletes not needing to be 18 and under to be successful. That’s really been changing over the past 10 years and that’s so nice to see the older veteran athletes being able to hold their own and, for the most part, being ahead of the younger ones.

Black will join Teresa McDonnell as the only Canadian female gymnast who have competed in three Olympic Games. McDonnell participated in the 1968, ’72 and ’76 Games.

“To be only the second person to ever do that is amazing,” said Fall River’s David Kikuchi, Black’s longtime coach and the women’s artistic gymnastics team head coach.

“She’s part of a wave that’s really changing the trend in women’s gymnastics towards the athletes not needing to be 18 and under to be successful. That’s really been changing over the past 10 years and that’s so nice to see the older veteran athletes being able to hold their own and, for the most part, being ahead of the younger ones. I really like that aspect of it.”

At the 2012 London Olympics, Black suffered a left ankle injury in the vault final and placed eighth in the women’s all-around.

Four years later in Rio de Janeiro, she made Canadian gymnastics history. Black placed fifth in the all-around, establishing the best-ever finish for a Canadian in the women’s all-around.

“She came in 2012 out of nowhere, a fresh-faced gymnast in the rush,” recalled the 41-year-old Kikuchi. “In 2016, she was around for the full quota, had been at world championships and had success so that was the normal trajectory.

“Now, Ellie is doing really well and at the top of her game. She’s been as good as she’s ever been. It’s so nice to see.”

Kikuchi knows a thing or two about the Olympic experience, having competed at the 2004 Games in Athens and in 2008 in Beijing.

The Tokyo Games will mark the first in-person competition for all of the athletes nominated to the team since early 2020.

Gymnastics Canada had been holding virtual competitions for the last year to accommodate the various shutdowns across the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The artistic gymnastics team finally got together in person this week in Montreal. Joining Black in Japan will be her Rio 2016 teammate Shallon Olsen of North Vancouver, B.C., Brooklyn Moors of Cambridge, Ont., and Ava Stewart of Bowmanville, Ont. Moors and Stewart will both be making their Olympic debuts.

“Our first training camp in forever,” Kikuchi said, ‘but it’s great to be back together again.

“It was difficult with everyone being isolated and away from the team. But for Ellie and all of the athletes around the world, it’s such a great testament to their determination and skill and perseverance to get to this level again.”

The year off allowed Black to strengthen her right ankle which she injured at the 2019 world gymnastics championships in Stuttgart, Germany. During her last event on the vault, she tore ligaments in the ankle which required surgery.

Five months later, she put the ankle to the test the following March as an injury replacement at the 2020 American Cup in Milwaukee. It was her competitive return since the surgery.

A few days after the conclusion of the Milwaukee meet, the pandemic shut the sports world down and forced the International Olympic Committee to move the 2020 Olympic Games to this summer.

While the lengthy absence from competitive gymnastics could only help in her recovery, Kikuchi said Black would’ve been ready for Tokyo last summer.

“The American Cup went pretty well,” Kikuchi said. “She’s going to be better than she was last year. But she would’ve been fine last year. By the time a couple more months had rolled around she would have been OK.”

Back at full strength in 2021, Black captured two national championships virtually this year.

First, she was victorious in the senior all-around title in the Elite Canada Virtual Competition Series in Women’s Artistic Gymnastics.

Held virtually, athletes and coaches submitted videos of their routines taken at their home gyms over the course of three virtual competitions from February through April.

Black dominated all rounds of the senior competition, placing first in the all-around in each round, and winning the overall all-around title.

The next major event – the Canadian championships – was also held virtually and helped determine who would be travelling to Tokyo.

Athletes submitted their two videos of competition over a two-week span.

Black won her seventh national championship title and locked up a remarkable third Olympic berth.

“I’m really impressed with the program that we came up with,” Kikuchi said.

“It was really tricky because every gym is different and everybody has different settings, environment and use different equipment. It’s not standardized at all. And no gyms are set up like a competition would be. But we found a way to be pretty good with all of that.

“I applaud the coaches and the athletes for being OK with that. If we hadn’t been able to do that and had nothing at all, I don’t know how we could’ve picked a team. But since November, we’ve been having these virtual competitions. For sure, it’s not as good as having real competitions but it was probably at 80-90 per cent.”

Rene Cournoyer of Repentigny, Que., will be the lone Canadian representative in men’s artistic gymnastics.

The artistic gymnastics competition at the Olympics will begin on July 24 with the men’s qualification round. The women’s qualifiers will take place the following day.

How the athletes perform in qualifying will dictate what finals they will compete in (team, all-around, apparatus). Those finals begin on July 26 and continue until Aug. 3.

Kikuchi is brimming with confidence with this team.

“It’s a great team,” he said. “It’s filled with athletes that are world class. That hasn’t always been the case for Canada. These athletes are still functioning at their best. We’re going to be in the mix in Tokyo.”