Date: Sunday 13th October 2019 at Harlow Leisure Zone
Entries close: 2019-09-22
Entry ages: 7 years +
The first Regional Qualifying competition for the new season took place on Sunday 12th October at Harlow Leisure Zone. With over 300 entries the competition for our Cangaroos gymnasts was going to be fierce. But our gymnasts took the task and produced one of our best medal hauls in a long while.
We had 12 entries for this competition and all did fantastically well. First up was Amelie Hacker, competing in the women’s 13-14 NDP 2 grade, Amelie was able to produce two excellent routines in a large group and was placed at her highest ever position, taking 5th and successfully qualifying for the Regional Semi-Finals.
Next up was Sophie Ralph, competing in the women’s 15-21 NDP 4 grade, who delivered two solid routines and took 15th place and also successfully qualified for the Regional Semi-Finals.
Lily Carter was next to compete in the women’s 9-10 NDP Grade 2 and after an excellent 1st routine was right up in the medal placings. Unfortunately, and error in her 2nd routine meant she received no-score in that routine. Better luck next time Lily.
Next to compete was Benjamin Spence in the men’s 11-12 NDP 4 grade. Benjamin had been working really hard on his execution and it paid off, with 2 excellent routines that propelled him to 1st place, the gold medal and successful qualification the Regional Semi Finals.
Competing at the same time as Benjamin was Macy Dexter in the women’s 15-21 NDP 6 grade. Macy pulled out her two best routines to date and in an extremely tight and large competition was delighted to secure 1st place and take the gold medal and qualify for the Regional Semi-Finals.
Following those two gold medal performances in such a short space of time was Nina Smith, competing in the Club 3 Women’s 13+ grade. This was Nina’s first competition and even though the competition was significantly delayed due to an injury to one of the gymnasts, Nina successfully completed both her routines and finished the competition in 7th.
Albie Vaughn was next to compete in the men’s 15-21 NDP Grade 5 group. After quality routines were successfully completed, Albie was extremely pleased to take 3rd place, the bronze medal and qualify for the Regional Semi-Finals.
Next up in the second largest competitive group of the day, the women’s 13-17 NDP 1 grade, Imogen O’Connell and Isla Cowling took to the competition floor. Both girls pulled out some excellent routines and Imogen narrowly missed a medal by just 0.05, taking 4th place, with Isla finishing in 6th. Both girls successfully qualified for the Regional Sem-Finals.
With 3 flights of the women’s 13-17 NDP 4 grade, this was the largest group of the day, so our ladies, Rhiannon Monie and Molly McGregor had a tough challenge ahead of them. Rhiannon was up first and performed probably her two best competitive routines and was in 2nd place after that 2nd flight, however after a very competitive 3rd flight, Rhiannon ended the competition in 14th place. In the final flight of the day, Molly was equally excellent, scoring some of her highest execution scores to take 3rd place and another bronze medal. Both girls secured their qualification for the Regional Semi-Finals.
Squeezing in between Rhiannon and Molly, Annabel Hacker competed in the women’s 11-12 NDP 1 grade and with two good routines ended up in 13th place and also qualified for the Regional Semi-Finals. We are delighted that 10 of our gymnasts successfully qualified for the Regional Semi-Finals and 4 of those came away with medals. This is a great result for them, for their coaches and for the Club. Congratulations to all those that took part.
As usual we want to thank all our officials, volunteers and coaches who gave up their time to support the gymnasts, without their help and cooperation we couldn’t run the club nor enter competitions.
We now look forward to the Regional Championships in Hatfield on November 17th where the club will be looking to win back the Team trophy, which we last won in 2016 and to crown some Regional Champions.