Gainesville Boy Redefining What It Means To Be A Gymnast

Gymnastics is a difficult sport for anyone. It demands strength, flexibility, endurance and so much more. Try doing it with two prosthetic legs. 

Well, that’s exactly what 9-year-old Ansel Meadows-Rader does. Ansel has been training on the competitive adaptive team at Balance 180 Gymnastics & Sports Academy in Gainesville for almost two years. He wears prosthetics on both legs due to a congenital below-the-knee amputation.

Ansel said he discovered his love for gymnastics at a birthday party in fall 2019. However, his parents, Melissa Meadows and Chris Rader, noted that he has always been an athletic kid. They knew they needed to get Ansel into gymnastics when he taught himself how to do a handstand at the age of 3 and would see how long he could hold it. 

“I remember he went up into a handstand and when he hit 10 seconds, we’re sort of looking at each other like, that’s something,” Rader said.

Ansel started at Balance 180 in summer 2023. Meadows, an Instructional Assistant Professor of Marine Biology at the University of Florida, learned about the team from her department chair at work, who knew it had an adaptive program.

Something in Ansel clicked from the moment he started gymnastics. He had been doing physical therapy from before he could stand. However, he didn’t seem to be improving or enjoying it. It felt like a chore.

That all changed when he found gymnastics. They immediately saw rapid progression without doing outside physical therapy. 

He used to be sitting at a table or a desk at school and fall out of his chair. With the introduction to gymnastics, Ansel’s body awareness, balance and confidence skyrocketed. He also found something he looked forward to every week.

“We were going from trying to keep him from falling off a chair to having real confidence in the way he moved around the world,” Rader said.

Once Ansel had physical confidence, he was able to focus on other things. Rather than worrying about how he’s moving through a classroom, he could think more about his work and interact more with people.

“Everybody said, ‘This is a new kid’,” Rader said.

Ansel used to tell his mom things like, “I’m the slowest kid in my class.” He doesn’t say that anymore. Meadows said there aren’t words to describe how amazing his transformation has been. To not only see him do something he loves, but to see people cheer for him doing something he excels at.

“It’s brought such an energy into our house,” Rader said, ”it’s more pride than I can even explain.” 

In men’s gymnastics, there are six events — floor exercise, pommel horse, still rings, vault, parallel pars and high bar — compared to four in women’s. But Ansel says his favorite event is the rings. 

“You get to do lots of fun stuff on them,” Ansel said. “Plus they’re good for your muscles.”

While Ansel certainly has fun doing gymnastics, don’t forget he’s a competitive athlete. He recently represented Gainesville at Paws for a Cause, the United States’ first para gymnastics meet in Atlanta. 

On Feb. 8, Ansel  competed on vault, bars, pommel horse on beam and floor. The next day, he  did exhibition routines on floor and pommel horse to demonstrate para gymnastics. His parents said everyone stopped what they were doing to watch Ansel while the announcer explained para gymnastics.

One of his former coaches at Balance 180 flew down from New York City, where he’s interning to be at Paws for a Cause to coach and support Ansel.

That’s just one example of the village Ansel has behind him. Everyone he meets recognizes his incredible attitude and determination. 

Gaya Prabhakaran has been a coach at Balance 180 for seven years and has worked with the competitive adaptive team. She has also known Ansel since he started at the gym.

Prabhakaran said the most impressive thing about Ansel is his attitude. He serves as an inspiration to everyone, not just to those with disabilities. He teaches people to do the best at what they’re doing and have a good attitude about it because that’s what he does.

“Not only are you worthy of being on the same stage as everyone, but you’re worthy of excelling on that stage,” Prabhakaran said.

She noted Ansel is a real testament to that because he excels at everything he does.

Ansel excels on that stage, partly, due to the immense local support he has around him. A key piece of that support is his prosthetists at Gainesville Prosthetics, which are there to assist Ansel on the mechanical end.

Rader said Ansel’s prosthetists have talked to coaches at Balance 180 about what would help. Would he need more impact? Would he need to be able to rotate more? It’s all to help design the next set of prosthetics to keep him driving forward.

“Ansel has always drawn really amazing people into our lives,” Rader said. “He’s a magnet for just really neat people.”

Even at such a young age, Ansel realizes that shining a light on para gymnastics is bigger than himself. His father said Ansel’s No. 1 focus is on the next kid.

“He just wants other disabled kids to see that they can do this,” Meadows said.

While many may draw inspiration from Ansel, he was  inspired by watching the Paralympics. He loves to watch American para swimmer and 30-time Paralympic medalist Jessica Long, who has the same amputations as Ansel, compete in the 2024 Paris Summer Paralympic games, where she won her 17th gold medal.

However, gymnastics is not included in the Paralympics. The sport, as a whole, is still being developed. There are several barriers to gymnastics for those with disabilities, and in men’s gymnastics in general.

Daniel Leskow, another one of Ansel’s coaches at Balance 180, said one of the biggest barriers in adaptive gymnastics is the lack of options. 

He noted it can be hard enough to find a gymnastics program, especially for men. It can be even harder to find a place that accommodates for disabilities. On top of that, it can be difficult to find coaches who work with children with disabilities.

“That’s why when you have a place like Balance 180,” Leskow said. ”You’re giving everyone the opportunity to compete in their sport.”

Another issue adaptive athletes like Ansel run into in gymnastics is the judging. A lot of the judging in gymnastics is based on form, but that might look different for an athlete with a disability.

For example, if someone has a prosthetic arm, they might not be able to do some of the skills required on bars as easily. The same applies for Ansel.

“If you’re being judged on your dismount and you have two prosthetic legs, the dismount is going to look different,” Rader said.

Part of the challenge in developing para gymnastics is that they have to come up with scoring standards for each type of disability. 

There also has to be consideration of equipment. In Ansel’s case, the vault is tough. His parents said he does well with what he has, but he can’t really progress using the standard equipment. 

Whether it means stacking mats underneath a bar or having a coach-assisted dismount, Rader said the equipment has to be adaptive. That requires creative thinking because every meet you’re in a place with different equipment. Coaches have to be able to think on their feet to figure out how their athletes can compete on that equipment that day.

Ansel’s parents said it helps to have coaches who are willing to talk to the judges ahead of time to make sure they have reasonable expectations.

As Ansel’s parents have made these discoveries, they said they’re more understanding why the sport isn’t included in the Paralympics. But, that’s not stopping Ansel.

“So now for him to be able to participate in building another para sport and being able to inspire other people … it’s just full circle,” Meadows said.

There is also the issue of people not taking adaptive athletes seriously, from judges, to meet organizers to various adults in the room.

“They think, ‘Oh, isn’t that cute that they let these kids play?’ rather than seeing them as athletes,” Meadows said. 

She added that people underestimate them or are afraid to let disabled children do the same things as non-disabled ones.

To guide him through the adversity, his parents have been working with Ansel on self-advocacy. Instead of them talking to his teachers or coaches, his parents tell Ansel to talk to them himself. They want him to be able to communicate his thoughts and feelings. 

Meadows said he’s grown in that a lot and has done a good job at communicating what he wants to do and what he’s comfortable with. They’ve also seen this spread into the other parts of his life, like having conversations with his teachers.

“None of us know what it’s like to have two prosthetic legs, so he has to tell us,” Meadows said.

The advocacy is so important because he’s reached a point where he’s so advanced that his parents can’t advise. He has asked his dad “can you show me how to do this?” and Rader had to explain that he can’t.

Overall, para gymnastics is still a work in progress. Ansel and his family hope to see para gymnastics included in the Brisbane 2032 Summer Olympic and Paralympic games. Rader said Ansel isn’t going to give up until it is. No doubt, he wants to be on the floor competing.

“We’ve learned that you can’t discount what he says he’s going to do, because he’ll prove you wrong every single time,” Rader said.

Ansel’s love for gymnastics can be boiled down to one sentence.

“It’s fun, it’s great and I’m showing what people with prosthetics and other disabilities can do in gymnastics,” Ansel said.