TAG’s Bramlett geared for final try at nationals
Little did Melaina Bramlett know when she passed up a chance to go to a national gymnastics meet her first year in Level 10 that she might not get another opportunity.
She was an alternate based on her regional performance that year, as an eighth- grader, and when she got the call that a spot had opened in the national invitational, she had committed to a school trip — with money having already been paid — and decided to stick with that.
But she hurt a wrist two years ago, requiring surgery, and was limited to two events in the state meet, and last year she had toe surgery and could not compete at all.
So now the longtime Tennessee Academy of Gymastics student is about to graduate from Grace Academy and is facing a final chance to qualify for the nationals. Interestingly, the regional this weekend again is in Bradenton, Fla., where it also was held the year she earned alternate status.
Despite having rolled her left ankle in a workout last week, Bramlett will be competing Sunday after winning in floor exercise with a 9.4 score, tying for first in vault with a 9.2, taking third in uneven parallel bars and finishing fifth all- around in the recent state meet. Her floor routine includes a “one- handed roundoff back handspring double pike” that no one else in the state performs.
“It even catches the other coaches’ attention,” Lee Ann Denham, who with her husband Larry owns and heads the coaching at TAG, said of the move Bramlett developed while recovering from her wrist surgery.
The state all-around winner, Megan Oscar from Girls Preparatory School and the Gymnastics Center of Chattanooga in Ooltewah, also will be in Bradenton.
Oscar recently signed a scholarship to continue gymnastics collegiately at Pittsburgh. Two other GCC signees, Jaquie Tun (West Virginia) and Macey Roberts (Maryland) were unable to compete in the state because of injuries, but Tun is entered in the balance beam and uneven parallel bars at Bradenton.
Perhaps largely because she was so limited in the key recruiting years, Bramlett, 18, sees her gymnastics career winding down. She will be attending Chattanooga State.
She has been reared by her grandmother, Deborah Bramlett , with great- aunt Marcia Newby also helping greatly with her upbringing.
“They’re great people,” said Lee Ann Denham, who with Larry also has been a big part of Melaina’s life for 14 years.
“I feel like TAG, it’s a family,” Melaina said, adding that gymnastics means “everything” to her.
She played “a little basketball” and ran track some while in elementary school, she said, but she “never had time” to pursue either despite being wooed after she got to Grace.
She also used to sing in the school choir and in a youth choir at church, “and I still like singing. I just do it on my own,” she said.
“Mel’s been with us since she was a baby, almost,” Lee Ann Denham said. “She works really hard and she’s really strong. She has natural ability, but she’s had to work hard on the more finesse stuff, and she has.”
Denham said Bramlett has developed a varied floor exercise and beam routine every year because “she has so many realms of skills” in those events.
“The strength part came naturally, and as far as the beam and floor she’s always been pretty fearless, but the bars were another story,” the coach said. “But she’s kept working and she’s had her best competitive season yet.”
Finishing in the top seven all- around Sunday will get Bramlett a spot in the Level 10 Junior Olympic nationals in Des Moines, Iowa, but that means no weak events.
“I think I can pull it off,” Melaina said.
Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6291.