Canada is among the elite of women’s gymnastics but it wasn’t always that way. Women like Elfi Schlegel and Ellen Stewart didn’t politely step into the room. They bashed down the door, demanding respect. Stewart was one of the first top-notch Canadian female gymnasts. She qualified for the team that was to compete in the ill-fated 1980 Olympic Games which most of the western countries boycotted – including Canada – because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. But Stewart did make three trips to compete in the Republic of China. With a style often described as “classic and dynamic,” Stewart paved the way for a later generation of gymnasts.

     “(Ellen was a) determined and very hard-working gymnast,” said Schlegel, a long-time opponent on the national and international scene, but also a friend and teammate with the Xoces Eagles. “She gave 100 per cent in the gym every day.”

     Stewart got her start in gymnastics in 1972 with the now-defunct Eagles coached by Mary Lea Palmer and her husband Geoff Palmer. Ellen’s first love was swinging on the bars, but eventually the beam became her specialty. During the early days in her career her parents told Ellen she could continue if her marks didn’t suffer. She kept up her and of the bargain. While becoming a member of the national team, she was also an Ontario Scholar.

     In 1976 Stewart travelled to Montreal to watch the Olympics and her hero, the Romanian superstar Nadia Comaneci. It was there that the 12-year-old Mississauga girl decided to make the 1980 Olympic team her goal.

     It was in 1976 that Stewart gained her first international experience in Germany. One of the highlights of her career came the following year when she met and exchanged gifts with Comaneci at a Canada-Romania dual meet. Her first trip to China was also in 1977 and there she learned that some crowds were tougher then others. “In China, the fans would laugh at you when you fell,” she says.