The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Sports Oakville Beaver By Herb Garbutt OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF SPORTS EDITOR: JON KUIPERIJ Phone 905-845-3824 (ext. 255) Fax 905-337-5567 email sports@oakvillebeaver.com · SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 2007 31 Local youngster top argo gymnast in Canada N ine years ago, halfway around the world, a coach saw a bored three-year-old boy watching his sister's gymnastics practice. The coach didn't know at the time that allowing him to pass some time bouncing on a trampoline would launch the career of a Canadian champion. Cory Paterson completed that leap last weekend at the Canadian Gymnastics Championships in Regina. The Falgarwood Public School Grade 6 student won gold medals on the rings, vault and parallel bars on his way to the allaround argo men's title. Paterson, who celebrated his 12th birthday on the first of two days of competition, finished with a total score of 113.871 to top 24 other gymnasts from around the country vying for the championship. Greg Jackson, Paterson's coach at the Oakville Gymnastics Club, said he thought his young student had potential to finish in the top three after a Cory Paterson fifth all-around finish at last year's nationals. However, he knew that Paterson was at a disadvantage. In addition to being a year younger than most of his rivals, Paterson's starting values were two points lower than many of the other competitors, who had that extra year to incorporate more difficult skills into their routine. In order to make up that difference in start values -- the equivalent of four falls -- Paterson would have to be close to perfect. And he was. Paterson earned 97.5 per cent of the points available to him, helping him finish ahead of last year's allaround bronze medalist, Mississauga's Tariq Dowers, who finished with a score of 113.438. It has been five years since Paterson's family moved back to Oakville and brought him to the Oakville club after living in New Zealand for four years. Allister Paterson, Cory's father, credits Jackson for helping Cory reach his potential. "We really saw the change when he moved under Greg," he said. "(Greg) told us right away, `There's a lot to work with here.' That motivated (Cory)." Jackson says motivating Cory has never been a problem. "He's quite talented but he's got a great work ethic, too," said the coach. "He's self-driven. He wants to learn new skills. I just guide him along the path. He wants it. As a coach, it's great if you don't have to convince someone to work hard." There may very well be some gymnastics genes in the family. Cory's older sister Nikki -- the one whose practice he was watching when he got his unexpected start in the sport -- is an also an accomplished gymnast, having been a member of Team Ontario each of the last two years. Cory spends 20 hours a week in the gym learning and perfecting his skills. "It's like a full-time job when you put it with school," says Allister Paterson. "Not once has he not wanted to go." Cory also won a silver medal on floor and a bronze on high bar at nationals (clubmates Miles Little and Daniel Capstick shared the bronze medal on vault). Though he knew he was earning high marks that might put him in first, Paterson remained focused on his individual events. "I knew I had a chance (to win) but I was just worried about hitting my routines and sticking my landings," he said. When he did that, Paterson became the club's first-ever national champion. And while the club has several high performance gymnasts who compete at the national level, including Matthew Albrecht, Matthew Grinter and Sean Lord, Jackson said it may be Paterson that inspires the next generation of Oakville gymnasts. "The little guys look at guys like Matt and Sean and they look like men to them. They expect a man to do all these things," he said. "Cory, they can relate to a little more. He's closer to their age and that makes it that much more of an inspiration to them." OAKVILLE BEAVER FILE PHOTO TOP ARGO: Cory Paterson, pictured competing in last year's provincial artistic gymnastics championships in Oakville, won the all-around argo men's title at last weekend's national championships in Regina. Johnson now an 800m specialist Abbey Park student, Aquinas' Griffiths win at regionals ST. CATHARINES -- Jade Johnson has found herself a new specialty. After always considering the 1,500-metre run her best event, the Abbey Park Grade 9 student is turning in some impressive results in the midget girls' 800m, including yesterday's win at the south regional high school track-and field meet in St. Catharines. "Ive learned how to run this race," she said. "I didn't pace myself properly before." Johnson's race strategy seemed pretty simple: run to the front of the pack and dare anyone to catch her. Nobody could yesterday. She won by more than two seconds over St. Thomas Aquinas' Colleen Hennessy in a time of 22.40 seconds. Of course, Johnson is no slouch in her former specialty. She finished third in the 1,500m on Thursday to qualify for next week's Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) meet in Ottawa. Another athlete heading to OFSAA in two events is Aquinas' Miana Griffiths. Griffiths finished second in the senior girls' 100m on Thursday despite turning in the meet's best time, 12.32 seconds in the preliminaries. In the final, she said she let problems with the starting blocks distract her, allowing a St. Marcellinus runner to edge her by seven one-hundredths of a second. Yesterday, Griffiths wasn't about to let anything get in her way of a victory in the 200m. "I had to push," she said. "The 100 was my goal and it's my passion. I had to show myself for my track coach, my school and for Oakville. That's where the king, Donovan Bailey, comes from." Griffiths delivered, winning in a time of 25.49 seconds. Abbey Park's Michael Trnkus and Holy Trinity's Gerald Morris also won events on Thursday, the first day of the two-day meet. Trnkus claimed gold in the junior boys' 400m, finishing with a time of 50.15 seconds, while Morris won the senior boys' javelin with a throw of 50.80m. Yesterday, Abbey Park's Julia Friesen edged out several other local competitors to win the junior girls' 3,000m run. Loyola's Paulina Maher, Lindsay Bryant and Alicia Knox finished second, third and fifth, respectively. Top-four finishers in each event qualified for the OFSAA championships. -- Herb Garbutt · Editor's note: The south regional meet continued yesterday past the Beaver's deadline. See Wednesday's edition of the paper for more results. RON KUZYK / OAKVILLE BEAVER THANKS, COACH: Abbey Park's Sam McVeen (left) hugs coach Bonnie Parran after McVeen finished fourth in midget girls' shot put at the south regional high school trackand-field meet Thursday in St. Catharines, qualifying for the provincial championships.