“It’s a Big Commitment, but It’s Worth It”: A ‘Special Call’ Enabled 16-Year-Old Athlete to Find Strength in Equestrian and Gymnastics

Published 04/17/2023, 4:20 PM EDT

The few rare athletes who can compete in two different sports at once and at the highest levels are arguably the most fascinating people in the world of athletics. Excelling in one sport itself is a challenge, but balancing two different sports at the same time can be really tiresome. The likes of Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders come to mind whenever the discussion of dual sport athletes arises. Both of them used to play professional football and baseball and excelled at both sports.

A young athlete from Fife Lake has recently surfaced on the internet for being a dual athlete as well. A 16-year-old girl who comes from Michigan, Montana Timmer is a level 9 gymnast as well as an Equestrian. Apart from being a gymnast, Timmer is currently competing on the Kingsley equestrian team.

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Timmer trains for 5 hours every day at Grand Traverse Bay as part of her gymnastics training. Apart from this, she reveals in an interview with 9&10news.com how she delved into equestrian sports. When she was 11 years old, her neighbor taught her how to barrel race on a red dun quarter horse which gradually made her fall in love with horses. Timmer trained with Elvis who was the neighbor’s horse and practiced riding. She got a very ‘special call’ from the neighbor after a while with an offer that Timmer can buy Elvis from her.

“So I wake up in the morning, I come out here and I feed Elvis and I do all my chores around the house. And then usually going into school, it takes us like three to four hours. And so then I have to had to practice around like three because practice starts at four, and we live about 45 minutes away… so it’s a big commitment, but it’s worth it,” Timmer said.

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Elvis and Timmer are now racing on the Kingsley equestrian team. She chooses to be homeschooled in order to strike a balance between her commitment to owning her own horse and her status as a level 9 gymnast. Timmer wants to win with Elvis and carry on with college-level gymnastics. “You don’t realize how much core strength you need to balance when you ride. And so I think that gymnastics has definitely helped me with that.” Timmer has maintained a perfect balance between both sports which is essential as a dual-athlete.

Timmer’s career as a gymnast

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Apart from the equestrian training, she equally manages her time to train for gymnastics as well. Timmer revealed that she has been taking lessons at Grand Traverse Bay Gymnastics since the tender age of two. The owner of the gymnasium quickly recognized her talent but kids below the age of five are not allowed to compete. “So I had to train with them for a little bit just to train. But it was still nice,” Timmer recalled.

“The last meet I competed in I won vault, bars, floor and all-around. So kind of ended on a good note, I’d say. So which was kind of unfortunate that I didn’t get to go and compete states and regionals, but I think it was good little break, and kind of made me realize what I’ve accomplished. And I was kind of thankful that I was able to do it,” she said.

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Timmer is just 16 years old and with the majority of her career ahead of her she is bound to leave a mark on the world of sports.

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Introducing Sarthak Khanna, a sports writer at EssentiallySports who specializes in Bodybuilding and other American sports. Sarthak found his calling in bodybuilding both as a writer as well as a practitioner of the sport. Gawking at the sight of some of the most aesthetic physiques, the experience was similar to what Mentzer once acknowledged as an “immediate emotional recognition.

Edited by:

Anupama Ghosh

“It’s a Big Commitment, but It’s Worth It”: A ‘Special Call’ Enabled 16-Year-Old Athlete to Find Strength in Equestrian and Gymnastics

Why stop at 1?

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Timmer’s career as a gymnast