The Norfolk Academy
of Gymnastics
Unit 10
Rookery Business Park
Silver Street
Besthorpe
Attleborough
NR17 2LD
T: 01953 453309
Email: info@tnag.co.uk
Opening Day a Great Success
06/01/2008
Champion gymnast Beth Tweddle today officially opened The Norfolk Academy of Gymnastics. Beth oversaw a coaching session with the club's competitive squads during the morning and was guest of honour during the afternoon event during which the girls performed a display to around 100 guests.
Beth was impressed with the facility and the vision and commitment of Sara-Jane and her team of coaches. She said, "It is great to see new gymnastics clubs springing up all over the country" Beth also noted some very talented youngsters within the club, especially some of the younger girls when she helped out with a training session, and she commented on the girls' enthusiasm and hard work. She also noted that some of the girls were much better than she was at an equivalent age!
The young gymnasts were thrilled with the chance to meet Beth who is a real heroine to many of them. They were able to ask her questions during a question and answer session after their training session. 12 year old gymnast Sarah Kett asked Beth, "How did you manage to balance school work with gymnastics training hours?". Beth gave advice on planning your homework time, making sure teachers know and understand that you are training in gymnastics and making use of time - such as doing homework in the car on the way to or from the gym.
TNAG's first regional champion 13 year old Chloe White was inspired by the training tips Beth gave to her during the session she oversaw. Chloe commented,
"Having someone who has achieved as much as Beth give us some pointers was great - I did my flick-flick on the beam linked today for the first time and Beth really helped with that "
9 year old Polina Polyakova asked Beth about how she manages to achieve the cutting edge in competitions, and also how she deals with things when she makes a mistake. Beth answered that she does lots of repetitions of routines in the gym before a competition to make sure that she is ready and if a mistake does happen she is determined to carry on and show the judges what she can really do.
It topped off an exciting time for the gymnasts who are making up the inaugural competition squad at The Norfolk Academy - they started training in the partially completed facility just before Christmas and got to test out the finally complete set up this weekend.
3 of the club's recent recruits are sisters Summer-Jade (11), Angel (9) and Harmony Kenzitt (6) who live in Lowestoft and are travelling to Besthorpe 5 days a week for their various training sessions. Summer-Jade says her favourite thing about the new gym is "the fast track" (which is a sunken trampoline strip leading into the landing pit), Angel likes the atmosphere saying that "Everyone is happy and all of the gymnasts and coaches get on really well" and Harmony said she "loves everything!" .
Head Coach and Managing Director Sara-Jane Inglis was delighted with how the day went saying, "We had lots of local interest and around 100 guests attended the event which is brilliant. Hopefully this will help our profile to continue to grow".
TNAG is one of relatively few privately funded, owned and run gymnastic clubs in the country - many are either council tied and/or finded via lottery or other grants.
Inglis has high hopes for the future of the club saying,
"At the girls competitive end we already have a strong squad and the gymnasts who have been training with myself and my Assistant Head Coach Tracy Appleby for the last year at various venues around the region have acheived some really good results. Now the facility is open we can increase their training hours and we have had some really exciting talents join us as well so it is our aim to be the top competitive club in Norfolk by the end of this year and to start to pick up some regional medals as well and qualify our gymnasts for national finals. We want to compete at the Bill Slater team championships in our first year, which I believe if we achieve it will be a first for a new club, and aim to get gymnasts qualified to elite status and therefore eligible to compete at the British Championships, within 2 years"
One of the clubs top current gymnasts is 9 year old Emily Crowe who is Norfolk county level 4 champion, and ranked in the top 30 elite ranked gymnasts for her age in the whole country. The new gym will give her the chance to train 18 hours per week which she needs to do to keep up with her competitors. She said having Beth visit was "really exciting" and that Beth helped her with "my full spin on the beam". Emily says this year she would like to "make the regional team for national finals" and also improve her national ranking to "inside the top 20".
At the recreational end there have been 150 local children already booked in to attend the clubs various classes in gymnastics and cheerleading and the classes are filling up by the day. Inglis is keen to try and accommodate everyone who has an interest in the sport saying "As soon as one class reaches capacity I am scheduling in new classes and adding new coaches. We are on a site where there is potentially room for expansion and I am already thinking that several years down the line we can expand the facility to accommodate even greater numbers and different disciplines within the gymnastics family".
Photos from the event are in the gallery section of this site.
Classes get underway on Monday 7 January.
