Fil-Am gymnast sets sight on Olympics

NANJING—Gymnast Ava Lorein Verdeflor has drawn up a roadmap leading to cherished stint in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

But the 15-year-old Filipino-American admits that the path to her Olympic dream is rough and that success could come at a steep price.

“I have to get really serious about it,” said Verdeflor. “I have to really, really get down and start getting more skills, like working on technique and not take long vacations.”

The lithe Dallas, Texas-based athlete wound up sixth out of eight finalists in the uneven bars of women’s artistic gymnastics in the 2014 Youth Olympic Games.

She also placed 11th of 18 in the gold-medal competition of the all-around event.

Verdeflor, who will start her elite level-10 gymnastic category next year, now aims to become the first Filipino to earn a berth in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

“I just have to focus on gym, school and family,” she said. “I need to work on things, like coming to the competition positive and really try not to be nervous about it.”

“What I’ve found is laughing really helps me let the nerves go away, so I’ll be laughing like a maniac every time I compete.”

Russian Yevgeny Marchenko, who owns the World Olympics Gymnastics Academy in Plano, Texas, where Verdeflor hones her skills, sees a lot of promise in the Filipino acrobat specialist.

“She handled the pressure very well,” said Marchenko, a five-time sports acrobatic world champion. “It’s a rare quality. A lot of them (gymnasts) do well in practice and fall in the arena many times.”

While she’s good in the balance beam and bars, Marchenko said Verdeflor needs to work on the vault and floor exercise.

“Our goal is to be in the Olympics,” said Marchenko, who coached American Carly Patterson to the men’s all-around gold medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics.

“I believe strongly that we will be able to do it. Her performance here showed that she can qualify.”