The Norfolk Academy
of Gymnastics
Unit 10
Rookery Business Park
Silver Street
Besthorpe
Attleborough
NR17 2LD
T: 01953 453309
Email: info@tnag.co.uk
GIRLS GAIN NATIONAL RANKINGS
05/11/2007
Norfolk Academy gymnasts Emily Crowe and Natasha Rushbrooke gained national rankings after competing at the British Age Group championships in the voluntary level 4 section at Guildford last weekend. The girls qualified for the event after achieving the qualifying score at their regional heat in September and also by virtue of the fact that they had competed in the national grades final in May, which was a necessary pre-requisite for qualifiers. The competition was by some distance the biggest event of the girls’ careers to date; they had to compete very difficult moves in a pressured atmosphere and in front of a big crowd. The girls, competing as “Unattached” for the last time, started their contest on bars, where they were placed in a group with the south region team. After the team gymnasts had gone through their exercises Natasha was the first to go. She seemed very nervous having said that she felt the bars were slippery in warm up. However she was able to prepare them as she wished before her turn and had done a good final warm up. Tash very nearly over cooked her first move on the low bar but did very well to pull it back. Unfortunately this meant she lost all of her momentum and struggled to complete the circle move which followed. She tried hard to grasp hold of the top bar as she jumped to it and managed to catch it momentarily but just could not hold on and slipped off, falling on to her neck. Although obviously shocked by the fall Tash managed to carry on and complete her routine, although her emotions set in just before landing her dismount, which led to her falling again at the end. Emily had a very difficult task to go up next on the bars after witnessing Natasha’s fall. She did exteremely well to put what had happened out of her mind and went through a good clean exercise to score 11.75. The girls had a rest period next which allowed Tash to try and recover from her fall. For Emily the rest seemed to give her time to get more nervous! She was first up this time and should have been so confident on the beam having been absolutely solid in training for several weeks. Unfortunately she fell on her gainer flick which is a new difficult element added since the regional competition and one which she normally performs beautifully. She was also not credited with her acrobatic series, probably harshly, and so her score was quite low, at 10.2. Tash was obviously still shaken during her routine and had quite a few balance checks but fought hard not to fall off. She did touch her hands down on the beam on an improvised move which she had added in on the day! This would have been a heavy penalty but she still achieved a good score of 10.8 and was one of very few gymnasts credited with her planche move out of the many that attempted it. Having got the most testing two pieces out of the way the girls were able to move on a little more relaxed to floor and vault. Both went through their floor routines safely although were perhaps a little flat after their previous mistakes. Emily scored 11.05 and Tash 11.2. The last piece was vault where Tash performed 2 handsprings and did them very well, the best score counting towards her total was 10.9. Vault is an area Tash has struggled in but she pulled out probably the best vault she is currently capable of here. Emily did a safe handspring first and then threw the difficult tsukahara vault on her second try. She had plenty of height and flight and a good landing to score 11.95 which was 12th on vault for the day. Emily’s total score of 44.95 placed her 30th out of the 59 gymnasts competing and Natasha’s of 43.55 placed her 46th. The girls also gained national rankings for gymnasts of their age group by adding the score from this event to that from the compulsory 4 finals in May. In those rankings Emily placed 26th and Natasha 28th – giving the Norfolk Academy 2 gymnasts already in the top 30 in the country for the 9 year olds age group. Coach Sara-Jane Inglis said afterwards; “This was a huge event for the girls and they both obviously felt the nerves at some stage. Although they will both be disappointed with the mistakes that they made they should also be very proud of their overall performances this year. At the start of the year all we really wanted to do was stay in touch and we have managed to exceed that. The standard this year is exceptionally high and the vast majority of the girls competing at the national finals train far more hours than us, most more than twice as many and in a settled training facility, which we do not have yet. To even have been able to reach the finals shows how well the girls have done. The girls will hopefully learn a lot from this event and use it in the right way as motivation for next year. They will have seen how high the standard is and thus will understand how hard they need to work and how determined they need to be, in order to do well in the future. I have no doubt that they are capable of it. Next year we will be able to train more hours in our own gym and then there will be no stopping us!”
