The Norfolk Academy
of Gymnastics
Unit 10
Rookery Business Park
Silver Street
Besthorpe
Attleborough
NR17 2LD
T: 01953 453309
Email: info@tnag.co.uk
EMILY WINS BRITISH SCHOOLS - AND TNAG TRIO LEAD EAST TO TEAM SILVERS
29/03/2010
EMILY WINS BRITISH SCHOOLS – TNAG TRIO LEAD EAST TO TEAM SILVERS
Emily Crowe, Polina Polyakova and Bethany Harmer were three of the five members of the team representing the East at the British Schools Gymnastics Association junior apparatus championships in Newcastle last weekend. The long trip was well worth the effort when the girls came home with fantastic results.
Along with Freya Ansell-Jones of Carousel and Georgia Castle of Bury Spectrum the TNAG girls lined up against five other teams representing regions across the country. The East team was a relatively young one, with Bethany and Georgia only level 3 gymnasts and Freya a level 2. The pressure was therefore on the relative veterans Emily and Polina to bring experience and stability to the team, which they certainly did. #
The team had a good draw, competing in the second round of the competition and starting on vault, so competing in Olympic order. The team started with a no-nonsense set of cleanly performed and technically proficient vaults - the four tucked and Emily’s piked tsukahara all scored very well to give the team a great start. 12.7 for Emily was the top vault score of the competition and so also gave Emily an excellent start in her bid for individual honours.
Bars, as expected, proved to be a tougher test and this piece in the end probably lost the team the gold, with two of the younger gymnasts not being credited with a handstand and thus not fulfilling the difficult FIG requirement of seven coded elements and thus incurring a damaging four mark deduction. Polina and Emily went cleanly through their routines to lift the team’s total and 10.05 for Emily was third highest bar score of the day, showing that her previous nemesis apparatus is fast becoming a strength.
Beam is often where competitions are decided and nerves got the better of both Georgia and Freya who suffered multiple falls, meaning the TNAG girls needed to hold theirs to keep the team’s chances alive. Polina suffered one fall but was otherwise solid and had the difficulty to give her a big score (11.1). Bethany showed exceptional maturity and focus in going through a routine which, save for the dismount, had full FIG requirements with hardly a flicker of a wobble. Bethany scored 11.80 from a 3.5 difficulty score showing how cleanly she executes even her very difficult work. This was the fourth highest beam score of the competition. Emily anchored the team once again and she is fast becoming a reliable beam worker, hitting all of her difficult skills and combinations with only a few minor wobbles to score a massive 12.5 off a 5.0 difficulty score. Only one gymnast in the event scored higher.
The team finished their medal bid on floor where, due to being taken ill, Geogia did not compete, meaning the team had to rely on all four competing gymnasts’ scores to count towards the team total. Polina has battled back from tendonitis in her foot to regain her tumbling ability and was relieved to safely land her double pike back somersault and go cleanly through the rest of her floor for 11.55. Bethany had the lowest difficulty score on the team but the second highest score with 11.70, showing once again how important clean execution is. Emily performed the final floor routine of the day and the height of her tumbling drew gasps from the crowd who all enjoyed her choreography as well as the acrobatics. Emily was given a score of 12.25 but this was off a difficulty score of 4.40 which is 0.4 lower than her normal D score and we did not have the score in time to query this with the judges to see whether there had been a mistake. In any event, it gave the team a very good total of 172.95.
The results saw the East girls collect well deserved team silver medals, behind the very strong and more experienced team from the North. Individually the TNAG girls also fared very well with Bethany 14th, Polina 8th and Emily Crowe being announced as the winner of the junior competition after a nail-biting wait for all concerned. Emily received, in addition to her gold medal, a trophy engraved with famous names of past winners, including Beckie Downie and an Alpha Factor leotard voucher. This is Emily’s first individual overall gold medal outside of Norfolk and continues in an excellent fashion her brilliant start to 2010. Lots of her new moves were not quite ready for this competition and the decision to play safe proved to be the right one on this occasion. This competition provides a great opportunity for gymnasts to work under the FIG junior code and to work as part of a team and all three girls thoroughly enjoyed their experience and will treasure their medals. Well done girls.
