NK freshman named to USA Gymnastics Junior Women’s National Team

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, March 3, 2026

Cassandra Tan, a North Kitsap High School freshman, has been named to the USA Gymnastics Junior Women’s National Team after a strong performance at the Winter Cup in Louisville, KY, Feb. 22.

The meet served as a national tournament with all of the gymnasts competing in the event vying for a spot on the national team. Cassie implemented a regimented schedule in order to prepare for the event.

“For me, it’s just like a lot of hours of training, both physically and mentally, trying to stay healthy, eating right, getting enough rest,” she said. “It’s just like a schedule that you really have to stay consistent [with].”

Cassie initially began her training at Cascade Elite Gymnastics in Silverdale when she was first getting involved with gymnastics at five years old, her father, Mark Tan, said. She didn’t start competing until middle school.

Mark noted that early on in Cassie’s gymnastics career, she developed a routine that consisted of her going to bed at 9:30 or 10 p.m. in order to be ready for the next day. Currently, largely due to the routine, Cassie wakes up at 6:30 a.m every morning during the week in order to give herself enough time to go to her classes before a two-hour drive to Pacific Reign Gymnastics in Woodinville.

In order to get to Pacific Reigns Gymnastics, Cassie takes the Kingston-Edmonds ferry every day, specifically for their training regimen and the coaching that’s provided at the gym. Tan’s current coach, Cale Robinson, won Coach of the Year in 2025. Cassie mentioned that Robinson, an optional coach and co-owner at Pacific Reign, focuses on the basics, which helps her develop an overall skill set.

When getting ready to perform a routine, Cassie likes to listen to Bruno Mars, citing that his music allows her to “get in the zone.” Her favorite song by him changes from time to time, but currently, it’s ‘Somewhere in Brooklyn,’ serving as her go-to song when she needs to mentally prepare for a routine.

Cassie’s practicing regimen currently spans six days out of the week, with the practices lasting five hours each. During practice, she will have 45-minute rotations for each event with a warm-up in the beginning and conditioning and cardio near the end of each practice.

“We didn’t know if it’s like, actually unique to her, or it’s something she picked up, but I’m just comparing it to other kids, like how I was when I was a kid,” Mark said. “I was not like that for sure.”

Robinson noted that Cassie has always been coachable and “wants to get better on a daily basis and on a turn-by-turn basis.”

Cassie will be eligible to compete in the 2028 Olympics, so Robinson wants to continue to focus on making “incremental improvements both physically and mentally” in order to be able to produce at the right times.

Robinson isn’t sure if Cassie is currently capable of competing at an Olympic level yet, but if she continues her “upward trajectory” over the next two years, she can “definitely be a player.”

“I think from like a talent and ability level perspective, she can get her skill level up to where she would need to be in the mix,” Robinson said.