The Norfolk Academy
of Gymnastics
Unit 10
Rookery Business Park
Silver Street
Besthorpe
Attleborough
NR17 2LD
T: 01953 453309
Email: info@tnag.co.uk
EIGHT MEDALS AND FOUR GOLDS AT NORFOLK ELITE AND NATIONAL GRADES CHAMPIONSHIPS
15/02/2010
FOUR GOLDS AND EIGHT MEDALS FOR ACADEMY GIRLS AT NORFOLK CHAMPS
A small but select group of 15 of the best gymnasts in Norfolk gathered for the county’s own National and Compulsory Grades competition at Norwich on 14 February. This year the sensible decision was made to split the Compulsory and National grades from the lower level club grades so as to ensure the competitions both run to time.
The Norfolk Academy took ten gymnasts to the championships, which was, as is now becoming usual, by far the largest squad. We were represented at all five of the grades being contested and won gold at four out of the five.
At compulsory level 5 Emma Hill and Grace Luckhurst were the youngest gymnasts competing, both aged seven, and this was their first official competition. Both coped very well and showed high quality gymnastics for their young years. Emma took gold, scoring an excellent 59.07 including the highest beam score of the day, 12.50 with Grace just behind, scoring 57.18. The performances of these two young and very talented gymnasts show that the future of the club is exceptionally bright.
Three clubs were represented at compulsory level 4 and the battle between them was closely fought. The three TNAG girls, Caitlin Baker, Eleanor Parsons and Olivia Syder battled closely with one another and the Norwich gymnast Laura Cooke, with all four very close across the pieces. In the end it was Eleanor who strode to gold, her first ever. Despite a mistake on the range, Eleanor’s excellent flexibility, jumps and leaps, along with her tidy presentation gave her her first ever gold medal. Caitlin Baker was a close second, having topped the pile on bars and Range and Conditioning but not quite having been able to give her best performances on vault and beam. Olivia Syder was looking strong after the first three pieces with great scores on bars, vault and floor but wasn’t quite able to match that on beam and range and was just pipped by Laura Cooke for the bronze medal, finishing 4th. All three gymnasts will go forward to the regional event with a positive mindset and to have three such quality gymnasts at this level is testament to the Academy’s strength in depth.
Bethany Harmer was the lone competitor at Compulsory level 3 and treated the audience and judges alike to a demonstration in high level gymnastics – making the difficult look very easy. Bethany was the only gymnast to score above 12 on every single piece of apparatus to amass a fantastic total of 61.61 points. If Bethany can repeat this performance at regional and then nationals later in the year, she will surely be amongst the top few in the country.
Six gymnasts contested the National Grade 8 competition with TNAG trio Sienna Sprong, Grace Ashworth and Charlotte Taylor all easily handling the demands of the level. The girls looked strong across the apparatus and were very closely matched. Grace was tidiest on the day and took the silver medal, with Sienna just behind with the bronze. Charlotte Taylor has high hopes at this grade at the bigger competitions to come but her flair and amplitude on bars were not rewarded this time around and she had to settle for fourth place. All three girls can go forward to regionals with confidence.
Lucy Jarvis was the only gymnast entered at National Grade 7 and put together a very impressive set of scores, highlighted by 12.85 for her vault and 12.4 for her excellent range set. Lucy’s total of 47.82 gave her TNAG’s fourth gold of the day.
All of the TNAG gymnasts were a credit to themselves and their club in how they handled the competition and once again the support from the audience was fantastic. The whole squad can go forward to their next round of competitions with confidence and optimism.
