Salem gymnastics team racks up first-place finishes in 2022-'23 season

Hannah Gentile has been part of the gymnastics world for most of her life, first as a gymnast and then as a coach. In 2019, she and her fiancee Seth Feroce “decided we wanted to get a little more serious with it,” Gentile said.

Less than four years after opening Elegance Elite Gymnastics in Salem, 22 of her gymnasts combined to bring home 44 first-place finishes from USA Gymnastics competitions.

“I started with 11 girls on our competitive team, and now we’ve built it to 96 girls who compete during our regular season from December to March,” said Gentile, a Saltsburg resident.

Team members compete across several skill levels, with those in levels 3 through 10 competing at the state level. Meets consist of competition in four areas: floor, vault, bars and dance.

Chaeli Keenan, 16, of Derry, has been a gymnast since she was 3 years old, competing with Elegance Elite for the past three seasons. This season she earned a third all-around finish and first-place bars finish at the state competition level, and earned first-place scores for all-around, bars and beam at the Level 8 regional championships, held in Landover, Md., in late April.

Keenan said her favorite event is the bars.

“I love spending my time working on those skills,” she said. “A lot of the girls do specialize in one event or another.”

Kaydee Chobanian, 10, who competes at Level 7, came home with a state championship this season, and followed her coach to Elegance Elite.

“I’ve been with the same coach my whole career, so when she moved, I moved to her gym,” Chobanian said, adding that bars is also her favorite part of the competition.

“I like all the skills that are part of it,” she said.

Gentile said putting together a quality stable of coaches has been a big part of finding success just a few years into opening her gym.

“Two of my coaches were originally just gymnastics moms, and I pulled them in and taught them everything I thought they needed to help build a successful team,” she said. “Our other coach, Alex Bubnov, was a collegiate gymnast from Michigan, and he moved here from California to help us build this championship mindset.”

Keenan said that drive has trickled down to team members.

“Everyone is a hard worker and very supportive,” Keenan said of the Elegance Elite competition team. “We always get a lot done.”

And there is a lot to do.

Gentile’s daughter, Emmi Feroce, 9, is home-schooled at the gym along with Thobanian.

“They both dedicate about 30 hours a week to training for their next levels,” Gentile said.

Feroce competed at Level 6 this year, earning the highest all-around score in Pennsylvania. She said her biggest challenge is her stature.

“I’m short,” she said. “Everyone else is taller, so it’s harder for me to do the drills.”

Keenan said the coaches at Elegance Elite are always helping their gymnasts improve, which was a big part of why she came to the gym originally.

“I thought it would be more beneficial for my and my career, to work harder and get farther,” she said.

For more, see EleganceEliteGym.com.