The Canadian Junior Vaulting Team are competing in the Fédération Équestre Internationale (FEI) Vaulting World & European Championships in the Swedish southern city of Flyinge from July 25-29. Flyinge is known as one of Sweden’s three national equestrian centers focused on developing excellence for the horse sector.

This marks the first time Canada has sent a team to the FEI Vaulting World & European Championships. The team competing in Sweden are all from Alberta! The team consists of:

Katey van den Bosch of Olds, AB (14 years old)
Lynda van Noordenburg of Didsbury, AB (16 years old)
Jaydee Fluet of Sundre, AB (16 years old)
Emma Sparrow of Rocky Mountain House, AB (11 years old)
Daniel Klotz-Dedora of Cochrane, AB (16 years old)
Emily Consaul of Cochrane, AB (17 years old)
Averill Saunders of Sundre, AB (19 years old)
Ryan Bracken of Sundre, AB (17 years old)

Leaping Levels: Canadian Junior Vaulting Team competing in the World Championships in Sweden

Photo Credit: Kaiser Impressions

Three of the squad members have also qualified to compete as individual competitors at the championships: Klotz-Dedora, van Noordenburg and Fluet.

Most notable Canadian on the squad is Saunders, who represented the maple leaf at the Herning World Championships last August in the Individual Female event. Since the championships, Saunders has competed in Leipzig, GER, FEI World Cup Final in Omaha, NEB, Grote-Brogel, BEL and Aachen, GER, placing on the podium twice out of those five competitions.

14-year-old squad member van den Bosch sat down for an interview with the Albertan news outlet Mountainview Today, to speak about her six years of career vaulting and the team. “I got started because my sister was doing it. She did a summer camp with one of her friends and then I saw it and I wanted to start, so then I did,” she said.

Van den Bosch, who always wanted to do gymnastics but also wanted to keep riding horses, found her two passions in one sport. “I kind of fell in love with the sport because you get to spend a lot of time with the horses and then you also get to do a lot of dance and gymnastics stuff.”

In vaulting, athletes combine dance and gymnastics on top of a horse that is cantering in a circle. The competition has two phases: the compulsory exercises and the freestyle, all done to music. “You learn at a very young age how to be safe on a horse and you know when, if something’s going to go wrong, to play it a little safer,” said van den Bosch.

Photo Credit: Kaiser Impressions

The Canadian team has one horse, Zorro, a 10-year-old Canadian Sport Horse gelding owned by Jeanine van der Sluijs and Angelique Vick – who own Meadow Creek Vaulting club near Olds, AB.

Zorro will have travelled to Sweden a few days ahead of competition to adjust to jet lag in time to compete. Van den Busch commented on Zorro, “he’s a one in a million horse and is very special, ever since Day 1 he was really good about everything.”

For more information and results about the FEI Vaulting World & European Championships, please click here