The Norfolk Academy
of Gymnastics
Unit 10
Rookery Business Park
Silver Street
Besthorpe
Attleborough
NR17 2LD
T: 01953 453309
Email: info@tnag.co.uk
TNAG gymnasts excel at Nationals!
05/05/2008
Three members of the Norfolk Academy of Gymnastics competed at the British Compulsory Level 4 & 3 finals in Birmingham over the bank holiday weekend. On Saturday 9 year old Lucy Jarvis, from Great Yarmouth, was a member of the East Region’s team in the Level 4 event, having previously finished fourth in the Regional heats back in March. Contesting her first ever national final, Lucy contributed to a creditable fifth place position for the East team and placed 41st individually. Norfolk Academy’s head coach, Sara-Jane Inglis, said; “Lucy has done very well to even be in a position where she qualified for, and held her own, in this competition. She moved to the Academy when we opened four months ago at which stage she was a long way off being able to successfully comply with the requirements of this level. We will now be expecting to see Lucy push on and improve her ranking in future national competitions; the experience of this weekend will have done wonders for her and she now has a great opportunity ahead of her.”
TNAG had a fantastic day on Sunday, when the Compulsory Level 3 event was contested by 66 gymnasts who had qualified via their respective regions. Angel Kenzitt, also aged 9 and from Lowestoft, was contesting her first ever national competition having missed out last year prior to joining the Academy. Angel had a fantastic competition without any major mistakes, and with particularly outstanding performances on the Bars (12.050, the seventh highest score of the day), Vault (12.675) and the testing Range and Conditioning set (11.800). Angel’s overall score was 57.425, which placed her in an amazing 16th place overall in the nation.
Emily Crowe was called in to be part of the East Region’s team only three days before the event, and stepped up to the challenge fantastically well. She also had a clean competition, scoring a stunning 12.875 on Vault (the fifth best score of the day on that piece) and was one of very few gymnasts to manage a score of over 10 on the Beam where the judging was particularly strict. Emily’s total score of 58.125 meant that she finished 11th overall, and she played a key role in helping the strong East team to a convincing victory in the team event. This means that Emily is TNAG’s first official national gold medallist, and she is clearly demonstrating continuing improvement on her national performances last year which had resulted in her being ranked 26th overall.
Sara-Jane Inglis was delighted with the performances of Angel and Emily and commented; “Angel is a very mature and focussed competitor and it is easy to forget that this was her first nationals. She dealt with the pressure of the occasion remarkably well, and should be very proud of herself and her excellent position. Emily was a little bit shocked when she discovered last Thursday that she was in the East team, but she lifted her game to ensure that she was a hugely valuable contributor and fully deserved her first ever national gold medal, and her incredible overall placing.”
Sara-Jane has very high hopes for these two gymnasts in the future, saying that “for the Academy to have two gymnasts ranked in the top 20 in the country is fantastic. We believe that the girls could potentially do even better in the voluntary events later in the year, and from there the sky really is the limit. I am so excited about what the future holds for them, as unlike most of the other gymnasts who they are competing against at national level, they have only been undertaking high level training for a relatively short period of time. All three of the gymnasts who competed this weekend, not to mention their families, have made an amazing commitment to their sport and to the Academy and I hope that they will feel that the results are starting to prove that the commitment is worthwhile! We also have lots of other young gymnasts that are now starting to come through the ranks at the Academy, and the likes of Lucy, Angel and Emily will hopefully be an inspiration to them all. I have to pinch myself sometimes to remember that we have only been open four months!”
TNAG had further success the weekend prior to this, at the National Club Grade finals where Summer-Jade Kenzitt was reserve for the East Region’s team at Grade 2. The East team stormed to victory although the rules of this event meant that, frustratingly, Summer-Jade was not able to compete individually. She did play a key support role and deserved her Gold medal, and the future now looks very bright for Summer-Jade.
Go to the Photo Gallery for some photographs of the successful gymnasts.
