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"If you find something you love to do, push yourself to be your best. You only live once and you don’t want to wonder what could have been"

Marci Bernholtz

 

2000 Highlights: Marci Bernholtz began her career at the national level by qualifying for the Canadian championships in Montreal in the novice category. She impressed many onlookers with her strong physique and excellent basic gymnastics technique, as well as some top level skills for a gymnast of her age, including a handspring piked front on vault and a double pike on floor. At those national championships, she finished eighth in the all-around and finished in the top three in the physical abilities testing, an event where she could continue to excel in the years to come.

Bernholtz was young enough that she could have stayed another year at the novice category, but she successfully made the jump to junior high performance, easily qualifying to the junior list with a fifth place all-around result at the 2000 Elite Canada competition in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She also finished second in the physical abilities portion, a continuing testament to her overall strength as an athlete.

9th AA at '04 Nationals

2001 Highlights: While warming up at the 2001 Spring Cup competition in Burlington, Bernhotlz took a frightening fall from the uneven bars, landing on her neck. This fall and resulting injuries kept her out of competition for over a year. Despite not being able to perform any routines, she still took part in physical abilites testing and finished out the year with a fourth place in the physical abilities testing at Elite Canada in Toronto, Ontario.

2002 Highlights: In 2002, Bernholtz was finally ready to return to the competitive floor. Limited to the uneven bars and balance beam events at the Canadian Championships in Winnipeg, Bernholtz qualified for the apparatus finals on the former, finishing seventh. A fifth place showing in the physical abilities testing confirmed her status as one of the strongest gymnasts in the country. At the end of the year, Bernholtz was ready to return to competing all-around. She could have moved up to senior high performance, but chose to stay at the junior level one more year in order to gain more competitive experience and confidence, after having already missed out on many competitions due to various injuries. She showed at the 2002 Elite Canada competition in Gatineau, Quebec, that she was not to be forgotten. She finished fourth in the all-around, qualifying for event finals on three events, adding a first place in the physical abilites testing for good measure.

2003 Highlights: Bernholtz entered her second national championships as a junior high performance athlete in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Competing on three apparatus only (she did not compete on vault), Bernholtz qualified for apparatus finals in the uneven bars, taking home a bronze medal. She also competed in the balance beam final where she finished sixth. Another win in the physical abilities testing portion proved that she was still one of the strongest gymnasts overall in the country.

By the end of 2003, Bernholtz was ready to return to all-around action, this time at the senior high performance level. At the Elite Canada competition in Mississauga, Ontario, Bernholtz competed many new skills, including a Yurchenko-full on vault, a Tkatchev release on the uneven bars, and an attempted double layout on floor exercise. She earned a 12th place finish in the all-around and qualified for the apparatus finals in the vault and uneven bars. She took home no medals this time, but impressed on lookers with her improving difficulty on all four events, serving notice that she was on her way to becoming a top senior athlete.

a proud Bernholtz earns a berth to the Olympic training squad (pictured with coach, Paula Johnston)

2004 Highlights: Bernholtz’s most recent competitive results earned her a position on Canada’s junior national team, and 2004 would give her valuable international competitive experience. In March, she competed on Canada’s B team at the Jurassic Classic dual meet versus Japan. There, she earned the second highest all-around total of the meet, a 35.10. Her all-around effort also included a 10.0 start value on the floor exercise, where she completed a full-in pike opening, a two whips through to 2 ½ twist second line, and a double pike last line. This strong performance gave her confidence as she next headed off to her first competition overseas, the Luxembourg Open. Bernholtz led her Canadian team to a bronze medal behind the United States and Ukraine, while finishing a solid fourth in the all-around with a 36.125. She also qualified for all four event finals, where her 9.313 score on the balance beam earned the international newcomer an individual gold medal. For good measure, she also took second on the floor exercise, scoring 9.25. This performance proved that Bernholtz could compete with some of the best in the world, making her a definite contender for the 2004 Olympic team.

Bernholtz vaults to bronze at '04 Massilia (Pictured here at Massilia on FX) Photos/Sandy Kost-Sterner www.pottsvillegymnastics.com

At the 2004 Canadian Championships in Mississauga, Bernholtz performed extremely well on two apparatus, the vault and floor exercise, making finals on the former, and being added to the floor final after Kate Richardson withdrew. With the floor finals being broadcast on live television nation wide, Bernholtz made the most of her opportunity, giving one of her best performances to date – taking the bronze medal with a 9.325 score. During the all-around competition the previous night, mistakes on bars and beam (she fell on both dismounts) left her in ninth place – an improvement from her previous Elite Canada ranking. This result, combined with an impressive international showing earlier in the season, earned Bernholtz one of the ten spots for the upcoming Olympic trials.

Bernholtz’s gymnastics: Bernholtz has long been known for her physical strength as a gymnast, as well as some of the best basics and body line in Canada. She is a well balanced all-arounder, capable of big skills on all four events. On the vault, she has mastered the Yurchenko-full, and also competes a handspring piked front regularly in event finals competitions. On the uneven bars, her top skills include a jump to handstand ½ mount into a toe-on shoot to the highbar, a stalder-1/2 to Tkatchev, an overshoot handstand to toe-on full, and a double layout dismount. On the balance beam event, her routine highlights include a piked front mount, a switch side leap to straddle ½ to prone, a switch ring leap, and a 2 ½ twist dismount from two back handsprings. Floor exercise is her favourite event, and one where she regularly earns a 10.0 start value. She backs up her strong tumbling (piked full-in, two whips through to 2 ½ twist, double pike) with equally well completed dance combinations: triple turn, switch ring leap to cat leap double to cat leap 1 ½, double turn to tuck jump double, and Gogean leap. Bernholtz continues to increase the level of difficulty of her routines and seems to gain more confidence with every competition. If she continues to improve as she has in the last year, she should continue to rise in the Canadian rankings.