Date: Saturday 9th July 2016 - Sunday 10th July 2016 at Telford International Centre, Telford
Entries close: 2016-06-06
Entry ages: 9 years +
Cambridge Cangaroos joined the 100's of clubs travelling from all over Great Britain in Telford to compete in the National Finals in Trampoline, DMT and Tumbling. The gymnasts taking part had all qualified to the finals through various rounds of competition held regionally and nationally throughout the year. The groups were made up of the top 8 gymnasts who had achieved the qualification either at the Regional Team Finals (Level 1-7 gymnasts) or at the two Spring Event National qualifiers (only applied to Level 8 gymnasts) Cambridge Cangaroos had 4 gymnasts competing and we had travelled there with high hopes for success.
We had two gymnasts on each day of competition, with equipment orientation taking place the evening before for the relevant gymnast’s competition That meant the coaches, Tony and Luis were there for the weekend as we had our gymnasts competing across both days. On Saturday, we had Abhi Marlow-McDonald and Gabriel Strydom-Green competing in the Men’s 9-12 Level 6 group. Following their success at recent Regional Team Finals event in Birmingham, we had high hopes for a medal. Abhi was first to compete and secured a high score in his first routine and was lying is 1st place. Unfortunately, an error from Gabe meant that he was in 3rd at this point. Two good routines from the boys secured our first ever National Champion for the Club with Abhi taking joint 1st place. Gabe took 3rd place with a good routine, but was unable to make up the lost marks form Round one to go higher.
We ended day one of the competition with a 1st Place and a 3rd place. A great start for Cangaroos. The evening was spent with colleagues from the two other major Cambridgeshire clubs, Cambourne Comets and Rotations, putting the world to right, but more importantly, putting together a collaborative approach to trampolining in the Cambridgeshire county, more to come on this.
Day two beckoned and Sydney Kelly was in the first competition of the day, taking part in the Ladies 13-14 Level 5 group. Competing in a highly competitive atmosphere, Sydney was in 5th place after the 1st round, but with very little between the top 5 gymnasts. An excellent 2nd routine saw Sydney climb to 3rd place and the Bronze medal.
Our final competitor of the day was Matthew Burson competing in the Men’s 15-16 Level 8 group. This had been highly competitive at the two Spring events earlier in the year and was a very open competition with any of the top 8 gymnasts capable of taking the title. After Round 1, Matt was lying in 2nd place and it was all very close at the top. But with the pressure mounting on all the gymnasts and Matt increasing that pressure with the execution of an excellent 2nd routine, his fellow gymnasts couldn’t keep up the quality or consistency and Matt took 1st place and became Cangaroos 2nd National Champion.
So the weekend closed and following the Medal ceremonies, Cangaroos came away with two National Champions, Abhi and Matt and two 3rd places, Sydney and Gabe. What an excellent outcome for the club and congratulations to all our gymnasts and especially to our new National Champions.
The club would like to thank all our coaches and individuals that contributed to the success of our gymnasts this season, in particular, Nicky, Max, Frankie, Ali, Luis and Head Coach Tony. We’d also like to thank our officials who supported us at all the competitions and without whose support and involvement we couldn’t compete.
That closes the 2016 season for the NDP competitions. The new NDP season begins again in September, when Cambridge University will host the first Regional qualifier on 25th of that month. Before that the 3rd League event will take place in South Shields, with all our League competitors looking to secure additional ranking points to secure their qualification to the League Finals, this year taking place at the International Velodrome at the Olympic Park on the weekend of November 20th & 21st