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SUMMER
2013
15
“I feel good,” said Lana Beydoun, 9.
And “confident”, added Lynn Domiati, 9.
As for Omar Chmeitilly, 8, “I feel so
proud,” he said.
On hand was their gymnastics coach
Rabih Daaboul who had been training
his young charges for a grueling six hours
a week for the past few years. A gymnast
himself and a licensed member of the
Lebanese and International Federation
of Gymnastics, Daaboul joined forces
with Ghassan Majed – also a gymnastics
trainer – to open professional gymnastics
classes at GYMBO, an athletics club
in Mazraa.
It is here that the IC athletes come
three times a week for their train-
ing sessions.
“It’s a lot of work,” said Daaboul.
“The kids have to love it or they
wouldn’t do it. I also heavily depend
on parents – who also have to believe
in gymnastics and in us.”
The program is supervised by IC’s Athlet-
ics Department. Two IC coaches, Mazen
Fathhallah and Osman Osman, accompa-
nied the students to Jordan.
The history of IC’s young team is rather an
unusual one: it was suddenly formed three
years ago when the IC Athletics Depart-
ment received an invitation from Amman
to compete in the METS tournament.
Two problems arose: firstly, there was
only three weeks to prepare the team for
the tournament.
Secondly, well…. there was no team.
There was only one thing to do: go
around the classes and ferret out the stu-
dents – if any – who were taking gymnas-
tics lessons.
To his surprise, Fathallah found him-
self with a considerable list of potential
gymnasts. Still, they may not meet the
standards. He visited the athletic clubs
frequented by the students and observed
each candidate.
Finally, he made a list of eight gymnasts
and flew to Jordan. Back in Beirut, the
Athletics Department realized that they
were on to a potential gold mine, so to
speak. Word began to spread. A year later,
12 gymnasts made the team. Today, 18
students – under 14 – are assiduously be-
ing trained at GYMBO.
“We are looking forward to having more
gymnastics and get the material neces-
sary to train them inside the school,”
said Fathallah.
Middle school PE instructor, Osman,
believes gymnastics will soon become
a steadfast and prominent part of IC’s
Athletic Department.
“We are still building the team and that’s
not easy,” he said. “It’s a sport that de-
pends on the performance of individuals
and that takes time.”
The younger the child, the better the po-
tential result. In fact, the star of the
METS competition in Jordan was
IC’s very own KG1 student, Joya
Issa.The five-year-old smiling mop-
pet flipped and tumbled in front of
a cheering crowd and strutted off as
if she’d been doing it her entire life.
To make a long story short, IC’s
gymnastics team did very well
indeed.