Ortona Gymnastics Club is a gymnastics club located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. They opened in 1976 under the name Gym-Fit until 1980 when the name was changed to Ortona Gymnastics Club.
History
Twelve years after, in 1978, Ortona had produced the first Albertan selected to a Canadian Junior Men's Team. This caused Ortona to increase rapidly in popularity leading to their 1979 move into the historical Ortona Armory in the river valley.
In 1981 Ortona's popularity experienced another surge when Canada's 1976 Olympic male gymnastics coach John Herb joined Ortona as head coach. Three years later John Herb qualified one of Ortona's athletes for the 1984 Summer Olympics. John also located the choreographer/ coach of Hungarys female gymnastics team for the 1976 Montreal Olympics, Anna Horvath. She moved to Edmonton in 1987 to help John to coach Megan McCurdy and Stephanie Pierce for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
Megan made the team and attended the games. Stephanie and Megan also attended several international competitions, Megan's sister Erin has had success on the national level as well. Megan Farrow was the club's first ever Western- Canadian Champion in 1991. John and Anna coached not just gymnasts, but figure skaters and body builders too. Anna also choreographed theater shows and taught ballett at the Edmonton Theater as well.
John's assistant coach George took over the training of body builders in 1989. Their student Tracy became Canada's Champion body builder in 1990. John invited two women's coaches from China named Ming and Feng-Hua Qui in 1987. They began negotiations with Ortona, which led to their eventual move onto the Ortona coaching team. Two years later Ortona moved into their current home, a 24,000 sq ft (2,200 m2). facility on 50th Avenue and 87th Street. In 2011, Ortona moved to their larger facility as part of the GO Community Centre.