Date: Saturday 8th July 2017 - Sunday 9th July 2017 at Telford International Centre
Entries close: 2017-06-20
Entry ages: 9 years +
Following the NDP season, which started in October 2016, two of Cangaroos gymnasts made it to the NDP 2017 Finals. Sydney Kelly, competing in the Ladies 15+ NDP 5 group, qualified through two rounds of Regional competition, the Regional Semi-Final and then the NDP qualifier held in Birmingham last month. The top 8 gymnasts at the NDP qualifier from NDP 1 – 7 were invited to compete at the NDP Finals. Matthew Burson qualified through the National Spring Events series which took place at Nottingham and Sheffield, in May and June. Matthew was competing the Men’s 16-17 NDP 8 group and again, the top 8 gymnasts who achieved the qualifying scores were invited to compete at the Finals.
Sydney's competition took place on Saturday but with orientation available on the Friday night, it meant a long round trip for Sydney and Laura (one the Cangaroos Coaches) to make. We were all back again on the Saturday afternoon, with Sydney competing in the last flight of the day. Sydney looked good in warm-ups, and this was transferred to the competition floor, where after an excellent first round, scoring on average 8.8’s from the form judges, Sydney was leading a very impressive field by over 1.0 mark. Her final round was also excellent, averaging 8.7’s from the judges and giving her the Gold medal and making her National Champion with a lead of over 2.0 marks. A truly impressive performance from the young lady.
Matthew had a successful Orientation on Saturday night and we left the hall ready for tomorrow. Sunday loomed and as Matthew was competing in the very last flight of the day, we took the opportunity to enjoy the competition as spectators. The competition finally arrived and Matthew had an excellent warm-up and was looking good. A high quality first routine had him in 2nd place after the first round. But a slight error on the out-bounce from the last skill in his voluntary routine saw him touch the mat and lose one whole mark from every judge. Unfortunately, this error meant that he dropped to 3rd place, but he still finished with the Bronze medal. So, Cangaroos finish the 2017 NDP season with one National Champion, (Sydney) and one Bronze medallist (Matthew).
With the summer off from competitions, we restart in September with the 3rd Trampoline League event, swiftly followed in October with the English Championships, the final League event and the first of the 2018 NDP regional qualifiers. We want to wish all our gymnasts a fabulous summer and we look forward to a successful end to 2017