Danbury Gym Organizes 'Virtualympics'

DANBURY, CT — One casualty of the global pandemic has the Summer Olympic Games, which were scheduled to begin a few weeks from now. On the local level, that loss was felt by Gymnastics Revolution of Danbury. During the shutdown, students from the 20,000 square foot facility were relegated to online and virtual training, with less instruction and less excitement.

"We did everything we could to keep them engaged, through April and May, but after school, and other online functions, we found that the kids were just 'zoomed out,'" said Allyson Bakalar, an owner and coach at the gym. "So, we put our heads together, and came up with something really fun and exciting."

This was the birth of the 2020 Virtualympics – a weeklong event for over 100 of Gymnastics Revolution's competition team and recreational students. The week began with the Virtual Opening Ceremonies, complete with a ceremonial torch passing and lighting video, and the athletes were grouped into five teams, each named after one of the colors of the Olympic Rings.
A series of competitions followed, where the athletes performed exercises, routines, and skills for their coaches, who played the roles of judges and announcers over Zoom meetings.

Nightly, a webpage was updated with scores and running totals, so each team could track its progress.

The closing ceremonies also included the Virtual Awards, where each team donned a medal, and the winners were announced. But as so often reported in the Summer Olympic Games, these athletes realized that the importance of the Virtualympics wasn't in winning or losing, but simply in taking part.

"We were amazed at how many of the kids joined in – some of them attended every single zoom event that week, so they spent hours with us," said Bakalar. "The mission was to give them a way to feel together, to feel some camaraderie. We feel like the mission was accomplished."

In the end, the Red Team may have emerged the winners, but over 100 gymnasts and ninjas from the Danbury gym were victorious.

Gymnastics Revolution has begun its first stage of reopening following the pandemic, and will take another large step during Connecticut’s Second Phase of Governor Lamont’s Reopening Plans, on June 17.