Once you’ve hit perfect, it’s hard to know how to move up, especially for the gymnastics team, which comes into the 2023 season having been as close to perfect as anyone could’ve been last year. In the 2022 season, the team went undefeated at their league meets and out-of-league meets, won their CIF state competition, and Camillie Caires (12) received the highest all-around score at the CIF state competition, landing her an incomparable status as California’s Gymnast of the Year. Now, for better and for worse, the team has a blank slate. 

Aadya Nayak (12), who co-captains with Caires, said that the team is smaller this season than it was last year, and less gymnasts means each competitor’s participation matters even more than usual to the entire team’s scores.

“Returning to this season as CIF champions, there’s a lot of pressure to make our win a second time, or to do nearly as well,” Aadya said. “For each event, the team needs to put up 10 competitors, and so, as a team of 12, essentially every person will be competing all around. Last year, it was okay if two or three people fell off the beam, for example, but now, there’s no room for error, and it feels like everyone has to perform at their absolute best every time.”

This year, as a Varsity optional competitor, Aadya will be competing in all four events at competition. Her sister, a fellow team member, has very different plans.

For second-year varsity gymnast Bhavaani Nayak (10), the road to perfection has been different. In the preseason, outside of competition, Bhavaani injured her elbow while tumbling on the floor. Initially dismissive of her injury, she competed at several club gymnastics meets before deciding to seek out a doctor to consult on her worsening symptoms. The results came back, and what they said came to redefine the high school season ahead of Bhavaani: her elbow was fractured.

“I had to reevaluate everything, because my injury was much more serious than I had thought,” Bhavaani said. “I couldn’t compete in most events. My coaches have been super helpful figuring out how I can continue competing and scoring well in what I’m able to safely do.”

Since gymnasts are required to compete in a certain number of meets to qualify to compete at CIFs, Bhavaani has to compete throughout the season regardless of her injury until CIFs, when she hopes to compete at full capacity. Until then,  Bhavaani has exclusively performed on the beam, which allows her to minimize the pressure on her elbow. 

“I’ve been doing lots of conditioning at home and lots of drills that don’t involve weight on my elbow but will improve me in my events,” Bhavaani said. “My end goal is to be able to compete at a normal level by CIFs, so we can hopefully win those like last year.” 

Like Bhavaani, the rest of the team is giving their all to rake in scores high enough to win their meets and continue last season’s success.

The perfect score the team seeks does exist, as gymnastics is a highly technical event. In each of gymnastic’s four events, floor, beam, bars, and vault, competitors score out of 10. These points are totaled up for an all around score out of 40.

With Varsity, on events like beam, each competitor has a starting value of 9.2, and performs various tricks throughout their events. Each of these tricks has set point values of their own, such as a three-quarter wolf turn, worth .2, and when incorporated into routines, raise the score of the competitor. The more tricks, and the more complex they are, the better the team will do. 

“In order to get up to a 10, you have to have connections or high-level bonus skills,” Aadya said. “For some tricks, like leaps, how many points you are given also depends on how well you perform the trick. A split, for example, might receive no points on a varsity level if it’s 90 degrees, so 170 or 180 degrees is what we want to be.”

Aside from the diligence of measuring turns, timing transitions, and sticking landings, the biggest key to success will lie in the team’s drive to win and lift each other up. 

“It’s super important to our motivation to bond with each other and lift our confidence,” Caires said. “Togetherness makes us so much stronger as a team. It was something we’ve been prioritizing this year, and it’ll definitely help us compete all the way through our ups and downs.”

Westview’s triumphs are already well underway. Their meet against Del Norte, March 31, was a win. Caires and Kaya Nepomecino (11) placed first in Varsity compulsory and Varsity optional all around, respectively. Westview took home nine first places throughout individual JV and Varsity events, and Bhavaani even got medical clearance to try out a few vaults. 

Ultimately, although the bar the team has set for themselves is high, the moments and spirit they share are what will propel them to perfection.