Team USA’s Olympic Coaches Inspire Local Gymnasts

Four-time Olympic coach, Miles Avery trained TNT Fitness and Gymnastics' littlest athletes

FARGO, N.D. — Taking on a new technique, training over and over until it becomes muscle memory, and learning from your mistakes happens every day inside the walls of TNT Fitness and gymnastics.

But learning from a Four-time Olympic coach is something special and TNT’s littlest athletes made sure to absorb all the information they could when the opportunity arose.

“I love it when they ask me those technical questions,” Miles said. ‘What do I have to do to learn this?’ “What do I have to do to get that?’ That’s what I really want to answer because I want to leave them better gymnasts. I want them to know if they do this, it will lead to you being better.”

But perhaps the biggest lesson Miles taught these young athletes had little to do with workouts or routines…

“Passion has to come first and foremost in this sport and loving it if you want to get to the elite level, if you want to get to high levels,” Miles explained. “It’s such a hard sport, so you gotta be passionate, you gotta love it.”

Even at a young age, those lessons seemed to really resonate with TNT’s gymnasts.

“They said that if you want to do the sport you have to really like it and you have to work really hard,” gymnast Lily Hoglund said.

“You should have a purpose for what you’re doing and really love gymnastics,” Jaelyn Stetz added. “Not just doing it to win awards, doing it because you really like it.”

So, combine work ethic and a love for the sport, and the newest Olympian could be right here in very own backyard.

“When we talk about Olympics we always tell them that that is a huge goal and it’s a great attainable goal as they’ve seen many girls and boys have achieved it,” Monica Avery, Miles’ wife said. “So when we say Olympics or ‘yeah I know this Olympian or that Olympian’ just to see their eyes light up and have that thought in their mind ‘Well, I could be,’ then that’s just what we foster. Any kid, a kid right of Fargo, North Dakota could be the next Olympian. You just never know.”

Already some have their sights set on going for gold.

“I felt excited because I someday hope to go to the Olympics, because I want to become the best gymnast in the world,” gymnast Andie Janke said.

Avery coached Team USA Men’s gymnastics to a silver medal in 2004 and a bronze medal in 2008.