Rogers gymnastics coach trained with Olympians, coaches next generation of Olympians

ROGERS, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — Gymnastics is a fan-favorite for people to watch at the Olympics and one fan is a coach at a local gymnastics academy who even trained with Olympians.

Ana Maria Kuefner, owner of Triumph Gymnastics Academy in Rogers, has been following the gymnasts at this year’s Olympics and she expressed her excitement at seeing Simone Siles and Suni Lee winning on Thursday.

She says it takes hours, concentration, discipline and hard work to get to this level.

Kuefner is preparing the next generation of athletes for the Olympics at her gym.

She says the academy opened on June 1st, 2015.

“I open this specific day because in Romania it’s a huge celebration for children and that’s the day we started,” Kuefner said.

Jaycee Bailey and Hazel Mouser have dreams of making it to the Olympics one day.

“Because you get a really pretty medal and it’s really cool,” Bailey said.

Both students have been doing gymnastics for years but say they have grown a lot more since they started coming to this gym.

Kuefner coaches them.

“I will always ask for 90% hard work and 10% talent. And children are full of energy and sometimes they don’t know how to explain their energy into their elements. And we have to find a strategy for each individual child to find their beauty and strength,” Kuefner said.

Kuefner was a gymnast at a school in Romania.

“When I started school, it was the boom gymnastics of Nadia Comaneci power. So we want all to be just like her.  So I grew up with such an amazing beauty and goal and I want to be one like her and it takes a lot of work and a lot of disappointment in life,” Kuefner said. “And sometimes you climb the big mountains and you fail many times and you want to quit many times and you want to pick up again and try it.”

Her training was different from what she taught her students.

“We practice three to four hours in the morning. We only went to school two hours and one to four practice again,” Kuefner said.

She says she endured abuse at practice.

“I really one time wanted to eat a bowl of soup and I was not allowed to do that and the coach came and threw my head into the bowl of soup and kick me off from the gym with their tennis shoes underneath my legs. And it was just an abuse constantly at that time where gymnastics and I became very uneasy, unhappy for me,” Kuefner said.

She ran away from home to escape, finding herself at her grandparent’s house at four in the morning.

“I was beaten so hard from the bowl of soup, my eyes were super red and my face was super [swollen] and my grandma didn’t recognize me for who I was,” Kuefner said.

And even ran away to a train station.

“Everybody behind me cried and screamed, Don’t jump on the train, you’re going to die. At that point, it didn’t quite matter to me. I just wanted to escape the abuse,” Kuefner said.

Kuefner trained on a junior Olympic team but couldn’t go to the senior level to represent her country.

She was told it was because of her face.

“It made me really sad that not only you have to have the exercise and the ability to get there, you had to have the beauty in order to represent Romania at that time,” Kuefner said.

Kuefner later realized that she does have a beautiful face to represent her country in gymnastics and wants every little girl to know that their face is beautiful as well.

Kuefner said goodbye to the sport altogether and tried to find another path for her life.

“I tried theater, I tried paralegal. When I came to the United States, I tried to do a different business that’s cleaning homes and other things,” Kuefner said.

But she says after accepting Jesus into her heart, she realized she couldn’t deny her love for gymnastics.

“God and this gym, the equipment, the parents, the students, they don’t know but they’ve been the most support of a psychiatrist to me,” Kuefner said.

She became the coach she wished she had in her childhood by helping students in a one-on-one training session or building their confidence with words of affirmation.

“I always tell them it will pay off. You might see with me going for a while flat, but you will shoot up,” Kuefner said.

Kuefner says if you are a young gymnast and you are having a mental block do not give up.

“Fight for what you love and keep going. Don’t stop, don’t quit. The greatest is yet to come and the most amazing moment is coming. Trust me, you are on the way up,” Kuefner said.

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