Second-year Sport Management student Lucas Tiefenbach started coaching gymnastics when he was 13 years old; at 17, he became one of Canada’s youngest nationally certified coaches. After coaching the Western Australian men’s national team he eventually moved to China to work as Inspire Sports’ technical director, setting up China’s first recreational gymnastic centres.
Now, he’s opened up a local Inspire Sports gym, which held its grand opening last month.
“Inspire Sports was founded by a gentleman named Liang Cheng, who was my coach, my boss, my mentor, and is now my business partner,” says Tiefenbach. “He grew up in the Chinese communist system, where there was 40 hours a week of training, abusive, pretty much everything we think of with Chinese gymnastics.”
Cheng moved to Canada in 1994, where he taught himself English. He worked his way up at a local gymnastics gym, from being a janitor to eventually coaching a men’s competitive team. Several of his students went on to be majorly successful, participating in ventures including the Olympics and Cirque du Soleil.
“He was able to see recreational sports in Canada and how competitive athletes were actually having fun while doing their sport and still going to school,” says Tiefenbach. “He had this inspiration, thinking that this is what Asia was missing out on. People could do sport and school and still be happy at the same time.”
Inspire Sports opened its first gym in China in 2013. Since then, the company has opened eight more gyms in China and one here in Victoria and is on course to open gyms in Japan and Australia in the next two years. Tiefenbach says that the Chinese government was more than happy to provide its support to the Inspire team.
“The Chinese government knew that it was time to support the growth of sports, because recently there’s been a lot of westernization—they now have American franchises like McDonald’s, KFC, and Subway being introduced to the mainland of China,” he says. “The problem was that there was no outlet for sports. These kids were now gaining access to high-calorie, fattening foods with no way to burn it off. If you weren’t chosen for a sport at a young age, you didn’t have the option to do it.”
Inspire Sports has partnered with the Chinese education bureau to help find a solution to this problem and encourage physical literacy among the youth of China. Here in Victoria, Inspire Sports’ grand opening had Olympic athletes in attendance; Tiefenbach says that over the seven weeks leading up to the grand opening, Inspire signed up approximately 820 members.
“It’s for everyone—gymnastics for all,” says Tiefenbach. “We really do believe that gymnastics is the foundational sport that helps grow people into different sports. We have people who are hockey players or dancers or figure skaters, and they can all benefit from gymnastics to grow their own personal sport.”
Tiefenbach believes that education doesn’t stop, and he says that his time at Camosun was valuable because of the college’s instructors.
“What I love about Camosun is that all of the professors have their own personal life experience in what they’re teaching,” he says. “I’ve learnt a lot through the stories they’ve told and the experience that they’ve had. The professors have been amazing enough to pass on their resources and knowledge to me, which has helped a lot.”
Inspire’s plan is to open up a new gym every one or two years, and Tiefenbach is loving every minute of it.
“I’m thrilled,” he says. “I’m doing something that I love. Every morning I get to wake up and come live the dream of being able to work at a gymnastics gym, and stay active for life, and get paid to do so.”