A pair of Tri-City athletes landed on the podium at the trampoline and tumbling world championships in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Coquitlam's Tamara O'Brien struck gold with her tumbling routine at the world age group championships.
"It would be the last time I competed at (WAGs) so I just wanted to do my best," said the 17-year-old. "Whether I came eighth or I came first, just doing a really awesome pass would make me really happy and winning was just the cherry on top."
O'Brien scored 31.3 points to finish in a first-place tie with Heather Cowell of Great Britain. Both were awarded a gold medal.
O'Brien arrived at the age group championships coming off a silver-medal performance the previous week with the Canadian team at the senior world championships.
"I've never been so nervous in my whole life," she said. "You're with a team and you don't want to let your teammates down if you mess up. It was a lot of pressure but it was also so, so exciting."
O'Brien finished 11th in her individual preliminaries at the senior worlds and said that had taken a lot of the pressure off for the age group championships.
"I think the warm-up from the senior worlds and the team atmosphere there gave her a little more confidence. I think her coping with the competition was different," said Barb Fraser, O'Brien's coach at the TAG Sports Centre in Port Coquitlam who was also one of the Team Canada coaches in Bulgaria.
"She's a veteran at this. But these medals at the worlds have always eluded her. She's been in the finals several times, she's even been in first going in the finals but it was just never meant to be."
O'Brien is already looking forward to her next shot at the senior world championships and expressed her gratitude to her sponsor Woody's Pub for making the trip possible.
"They are the reason why I get to do the stuff I do and I am just so, so thankful. Without them I wouldn't have got this opportunity," she said.
Kyle Carragher of Port Coquitlam competed in all three events - tumbling, individual trampoline and double mini - at the world age group championships, earning silver in double mini and bronze in tumbling.
"My first event was double mini and I didn't really have that high of expectations for myself because I heard there was a lot of international people whose name are known around the world," said the 16-year-old.
Carragher finished the preliminaries in second behind fellow Canadian Keevan Madigan.
Carragher said the second-place showing may have been a boost for him as mistakes cost Madigan his shot at the podium.
"I went into finals and I didn't have my best performance because my warmups weren't going too good and I had to take out this really big skill from my first routine," said Carragher, adding many of the competitors were having trouble with their routines.
"I had a really good second pass and was really proud of myself for that," said Carragher, adding while he's extremely hey with the second-place performance "in the back of my mind if I did my first pass a bit better I could I could've came first."
Carragher said he put forward his best possible performance for his tumbling and is happy to get a third-place finish in such a large field.
While Carragher didn't score well in individual trampoline, he is happy with his 15.5 flight time.
"That means I was jumping pretty high. I usually only jump in the 14s so that's pretty good," said Carragher, who is hoping to land a sponsor for his upcoming meets.
He plans on taking part in the Elite Canada competition in March with hopes of earning a spot at the youth olympics in trampoline.
