Idaho boasts elite gymnasts training in Idaho Falls

PHOTO: Cheyenne Machen practices on the uneven bars while coach Yuliya Brown assists. | Kalama Hines, EastIdahoSports.com; VIDEO: Athletes and owner-coach Yuliya Brown from Idaho Elite Gymnastics talk about their sport. | Jordan Wood, EastIdahoNews.com

IDAHO FALLS — Gymnastics is so much more than a sport that shows up every four years at the Olympics. Just ask the national and regional stars of the sport who occupy Idaho Falls’ Idaho Elite Gymnastics and Cheer studio.

Idaho Elite was opened in 2000, by a group of gymnastics parents who were searching for a safe area for their children to practice, train and compete. Twenty-five years later, dozens of gymnasts call the facility their home, including 15-year-old Cheyenne Machen, who finished third in all-around in last year’s Western Nationals.

“I started (training in gymnastics) when I was like 6,” Machen said. … “My mom started me in it because she wanted me to be good at other sports. She just put me in there hoping I’d want to do track or basketball, or something. But I ended up liking it a lot.”

Machen and so many others are helped to reach their full gymnastics potential by coach and gym owner Yuliya Brown.

Brown, a former tumbling national champion and 2013 USA Gymnastics Hall-of-Fame inductee, began coaching at Idaho Elite in 2010, explained Machen’s finish at last May’s national competition.

Youth gymnastics are competed at various levels, with 10 being the highest level of competition. Machen began competing at Level 9 last season, and ended the season near the top of the mountain among her peers.

“She did really good, and it was her first year of competing at that level,” Brown said.

Hallie Martin, 11, has been training in gymnastics since she was 4, and last season was selected to compete with the 2024 Idaho All-Stars, where she scored a near-perfect 9.975 on her floor routine, and a perfect 10 on beam.

“It’s just fun. Everything. Friends. Just competing,” Martin said of the sport, adding that she loves how she can “chuck it” — or go for it — in learning new skills and pushing herself to be better.

Both Machen and Martin said their favorite event is the bars.

“I just think it’s a pretty event,” Machen said. “When you do bars, it’s always pretty.”

They also agreed that the floor was their least-favorite.

Asked if she would suggest joining the sport to her classmates and friends, Martin said she would, saying it can be difficult and frustrating at the beginning. But that only results in a greater sense of accomplishments when you achieve your goals.

Mechan loves the sport, and hopes to earn a college scholarship through competing. But, she added, she currently does not have any dreams of going further.

“I never really wanted to go to the Olympics, just because I think that’s a little bit more than I want to put into the sport — that’s more of my life than I’d like to sacrifice.”

Brown began training as a small child in the former-Soviet Union, when she was picked by several clubs off the playground, she recalled. Now 50, she has spent 45 years around the sport, and has been coaching since she was 14.

She said that gymnastics is a great supplement for athletes in other sports — and even those who don’t have athletic interests.

“First, it helps with balance,” she said. “Secondly, it teaches you responsibility — how to listen to adults to learn new skills.”

While the gymnastics season normally runs from December to May, Brown said, Idaho Elite is open year-around. And they are always accepting new students.

“Anybody is welcome,” she said. “If you have a background, great. If you don’t, we’ll teach you.”

For more information about Idaho Elite or to join, visit their website — here — or Facebook page — here.