Date: Saturday 16th April 2016 - Sunday 17th April 2016 at Ricoh Arena, Coventry
Entries close: 2016-03-14
Entry ages: 9 years +
Two intrepid Cangaroos made their way to Coventry on 16th April to compete in the first of the National Spring Events of the 2016 season. Following changes to the event, only the NDP 8 trampoline Gymnasts and the Elite trampoline gymnasts were eligible to take part. This meant that a larger number of gymnasts pushed themselves to be able to do the much harder requirements in order to compete.
For Zach Goggin and Matthew Burson, it was their first time competing at NDP 8 in the Mens 14-15 age group and with a large entry (for the boys) of 23 gymnasts, it was going to be a formidable competition for both of them. For Zach it was even harder as he has been dogged by injury for the last few months and that has reduced his training time. But we went into the competition with hope and the belief that the experience would stand him in good stead for the future.
At this level, the gymnasts had to compete two compulsory routines and one voluntary routine, with the voluntary routine having a minimum difficulty level of 8.5. Zach was first to compete and he produced 2 competent compulsory routines and was lying in 6th place. However, a mistake on his voluntary, after completing the hard part of the routine, led to him failing to finish and a zero score. He placed 21st in the end.
Matthew had a better experience and was lying in 3rd after the 1st two rounds of competition. With an excellent voluntary routine, he climbed to 2nd and qualified for the NDP Finals to be held in July in Telford, an excellent result.
We look forward now to the second Spring Event Series in Sheffield in May, where hopefully Zach can complete all 3 routines and maybe even qualify for the finals. Meanwhile Matt can continue his competition season and aim to improve on his overall scores in practice for the finals