History

The Early Years: 1990-1993

Club Adagio was formed in January 1990 when Adrienne Arnold hired coach Pam Vukobrat of Winnipeg to begin training her daughter Megan Arnold.  At that point in Megan’s competitive career she was without a coach in Vancouver and had been training in Toronto for a period of time with Evelyn Koop's Kalev Club. When the word spread in Vancouver that a new club was forming, a few other gymnasts wanted to join and by spring 1990 the first gymnasts of Club Adagio made up a five-member team at the BC Provincial Championships. In addition to Megan, the team members were Ashley Arnold (who was 8 years old at the time), her friend Danielle Nerman, Mireille Rosner and Jessalyn Little. The parents of these athletes helped out in various aspects of the club and Adrienne was responsible for the day-to-day administration of the programs. During this time coach Eva Sokol, who eventually became RGC National Technical Director, also joined joined the club along with her daughter Anna. This was the nucleus from which Club Adagio sprang with full force, and by the following season the club had grown to fifteen competitive team members. At the BC Championships in the spring of 1991, Club Adagio's gymnasts received medals in every category in which they competed. In the same year, the club was designated the official training center for the 1991 BC Canada Winter Games team, with four of the eight member team coming from Club Adagio.

By the beginning of the 1991-92 competitive season, the club had expanded once again and the team had almost doubled in size since the previous year. Pam's husband became very ill and she left the club. Eva moved on to a job at the National Office of RGC in Ottawa. A search was undertaken for a replacement coach, and Victoria Buruiana (who was a well known coach from Romania, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan) came to our aid, choreographing routines for the club's top girls. In the meantime word was out that a Bulgarian choregrapher was visiting the U.S. doing workshops and that she might be interested in being offered a coaching position in Canada. It was a big risk for the club and a big move for Kamena Petkova, but she accepted our job offer and arrived in Vancouver to a gym filled with eager and talented girls who were waiting for their new coach. By 1993 Megan Arnold would win her fourth successive Provincial Championship title and the club's young novice, Jane Oh, would become the BC Novice Champion. The following year Megan captured the 1994 Western Canadian Champion title (with gold in every event) and the club's Junior Group with Ashley Arnold, Jane Oh, Danielle Nerman, Brigeeta Bartnik and Karolina Barski became Provincial Champions, Western Regional Champions and Silver Medalists at the Canadian National Championships. In addition Megan's young level 1 to 3 Provincial Stream athletes captured more medals than any other club at the Provincial Championships.

The Middle Years: 1993-1996

By 1994, Jane Oh was on the Canadian National Junior Team, the club's Junior Group (with Ashley, Jane, Danielle, Brigeeta and Karolina) had become the BC Canada Games Team and were enjoying great success and upcoming younger Junior Group with Lindsay Wright, Jill Turner, Christine Stanley, Roxana Cervantes, Michelle Bissenden, Kimberly DeJong, and Julia Fleming were coming on strong…destined to win gold at the Western Canadian Summer Games in 1995. Roxana Cervantes had just left Club Elite, (which the Vancouver RSG Club had now become) and had joined Club Adagio. Megan, after a very successful national level career, had decided that it was time to retire from competition and to focus full time on completing her English Literature degree at UBC. The club was at its all- time high enrollment-wise, with over 50 competitive athletes and about 40 recreational ones.

Unfortunately, things were not meant to carry on as they were, or so it would now seem. Other plans and visions were evidently brewing, on their own, in the summer of '95, and in August the news was out that coaches Kamena Petkova and Yimei Wu, together with club parent Diana Nerman, had decided to establish a new club, Aura Rhythmics. Club Adagio was literally left in shambles as a result of this split, with club athletes following their coach to the new club and many young ones quitting amid the strife that resulted. This was a very difficult and painful period for everyone involved and we are all very fortunate that we came through those bad times intact and that both clubs can now co-exist and work together professionally. But, there is no question that this was a huge emotional blow to overcome, Ashley (sadly) lost her personal coach and had to watch her training program suffer as a result, and Adrienne and Megan watched everything they'd worked so hard to create, evaporate overnight. But giving up is not what being a competitive athlete is about, and the handful of us who remained took great pride in the rebuilding process. We tried to look for some philosophically positive reason that all of this happened and before too long, it was revealed to us in one Blagovesta Borisova Ignatova, the National Team Coach from Thailand, whom we had so admired for her discipline and talent just the year before when she had visited our gym.

Recent History : 1996-2000

All it took was a good word of encouragement from her international colleagues, Tamara Bompa (Canada's top judge) and Liliana Dimitrova (the top coach of Sport Seneca Ontario) and BB was ready to join our program as Head Coach. She arrived to a revitalized gym of twenty-five gymnasts in February of 1996 and the rest is history, so to speak. In retrospect, we could say that all the strife and the split happened for a good reason because BB needed to come to Club Adagio. As it turned out, she was just the sort of coach we wanted and craved…and she brought years of coaching experience, credentials and success with her, not to mention one of the keenest technical minds in rhythmic gymnastics found in the world. She was ambitious, a perfectionist and full of energy yet she showed herself to be an incredibly exciting, creative and supportive coach to all the gymnasts she worked with.

The Update: 2000-present

With much success under our belts between 1996 and 2000, it seemed the time was ripe for some re-organizing under our club structure. The result was the birth of The International Rhythmic Gymnastics Academy of Vancouver - "The Academy" for short! In September 2001 BB Ignatova and Megan Arnold became co-owners and Directors and/Coaches of The Academy - a small elite level program of 16 National Level Competitors. Club Adagio would remain as a large Provincial Stream Competitive and Recreational Program and we would add a new Club Adagio Maple Ridge Program as well. Club Adagio, as envisioned, would provide a talent identification system and a support system for the new International Academy and both clubs would work together sharing expertise, facilities and hosting events.

In 2005 BB Ignatova followed her husband’s work to the U.S. and she continues to watch her former students develop in her capacity as National Team Advisor for Canada.  In the Fall of 2005 Bulgarian Coach Daniela Todorova joined the club and has already won the hearts of her students and the respect of her colleagues in the club.  In June 2006 Club Adagio’s “sister club”, The Academy, was named the Training Centre for the Centralized Canadian Senior National Team Group.  This Canadian Group is in training for the Pan Am Games 2007 in Brazil, for the World Championships 2007 in Greece and pending qualification at the Worlds, for the Olympic Games 2008 in China.  The Group’s Coach, Megan Arnold, was named Canadian National Team Group Coach and Canadian National Team Individual Coach to Senior National Team Member, Juliana Semenova, who is currently the highest ranked Senior athlete in BC.

These last few years for the club have been a time of high spirits and success on all fronts. Both Club Adagio and The International Academy have flourishing and successful programs.  The medals and honors are there for our gymnasts and it is wonderful to experience the tangible results of our coaches and athletes dedication and talent. We continue to be grateful on a daily basis for all the satisfaction, joy, friendship and fun we have together as a club…and we continue to take pleasure in watching the new little ones pick up their first ribbon, watching them as they discover for the first time the "magic" of rhythmic gymnastics.