Date: Saturday 7th September 2019 - Sunday 8th September 2019 at EIS Sheffield
Entries close: 2019-07-19
Entry ages: 9 years +
After a long National competition season, the English Championships brought our 2019 to a close. James Able had qualified in the individual 17-21 Males – Gold group through two extremely competitive rounds in Southampton and Telford earlier in the year. James was joined in the Synchronised Senior Males – Gold competition with his partner Zach Goggin who narrowly missed individual qualification.
16 gymnasts had qualified for these finals and they contained many of the Great Britain and English team squad members, all looking to take the title as English Champion.
In the individual competition James had come into the competition ranked 13th and we were looking to improve on that in the event. He had a good 1st round, scoring 16.00 for his execution and 9.3 for Horizontal Displacement (HD) and a Time of Flight of 13.4 (ToF), This placed him in 9th going into Round 2. Training in the week had been mixed for his more difficult second routine, and last minute changes were introduced to improve stability. Unfortunately, there was an error and James was only able to complete 7 skills out of the 10 required. Other competitors fared worse however, and James narrowly missed the 8 man final, coming 9th overall, an improvement on his 13th ranking, so there was some measure of success.
In the synchronised competition, James and Zach had come of qualifiers in a good ranking position, having achieved a 1st place in one of the qualifying rounds. Two competent routines were managed successfully and they took a well earned 2nd place and Silver medals.
Congratulations to both gymnasts and their coaches, Tony & Laura for a successful competition. The club now moves its focus back to the Regional season, with the first of the 2019/20 competitions taking place in Harlow in October, quickly followed by the Regional Finals in November.