On Sunday the 15th April, a selection of girls from our competitive recreational group made the journey down to the south coast to compete in the Naomi Stamp Memorial Competition in Chichester. For many of the girls, this would be their first competition on all four pieces of apparatus.

It was an early start for Annabelle Pickering and Sophie Padua who featured in the first round of competition. The day got off to a good start with both girls overcoming any pre-competition nerves, to perform well in their bar routines. Next stop was the floor, the girls showed their experience on this apparatus, performing their routines with style and elegance. They both scored well, missing out on a bronze medal by only a couple of tenths. On vault, Annabelle and Sophie both competed good handstand flatbacks. The final challenge was the beam. Sophie performed a clean routine to earn a score of 6.30. Annabelle recovered well from a mishap on her mount and, to the delight of her coach, successfully performed her backward walkover before sticking her front somersault dismount to take home the bronze medal. The coaches were very proud of Sophie and Annabelle scoring 31.75 and 30.65 respectively.

Sierra Payne was Woking’s only representative in the 2nd round. Her competition got off to a fantastic start with a confident performance on the floor scoring an impressive 8.60 in a performance deemed worthy of the silver medal. Sierra then performed a lovely handstand flatback vault, missing out on a bronze medal by only 0.05. She went on to go clean on beam but unfortunately fell during her bars routine, finishing the competition in a very respectable 8th place.

Representing Woking gymnastics club in the final round was Heather Denham. Her competition started on the bars, where despite a slight hesitation on her three-quarter giant, she managed to stay on and complete her routine. On floor, Heather overcame her fears and successfully performed her round off flick tuck back on the non-sprung floor in a routine that earned her a silver medal. She demonstrated a good handspring vault with only a small step on landing to again win the silver medal. The competition ended on beam. Heather showed amazing maturity and bravery to get back up on the beam and finish her routine after a nasty fall. In reward of her efforts, Heather finished the day with an impressive haul of 2 bronze and 2 silver medals.

Girl’s squad gymnasts Abigail English and Amia Topp also competed in the final round, finishing in 2nd and 3rd place respectively.

Special mention has to go to Devon Elliott who worked tirelessly throughout the Easter Holidays to ensure the girls were ready for the competition. She will be greatly missed when she goes to university in September.  

All of the girls performed very well and were superb ambassadors for Woking Gymnastics Club. The coaches are very proud, and look forward to next year when hopefully more of our recreational gymnasts will be able to take on the challenge of a four piece competition.   

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LONDON OPEN 03/04/2012
 
On Saturday 31st March the 102nd London Open took place at the Europa Gym in Dagenham.

The first round was the Youth and Junior competition.  Harry Carter, Tom Defina and Miki Chu competed for Woking.  Harry had a bit of a nightmare falling seven times finishing 17th scoring 74.15.  Tom only competed on four apparatus but performed well.  Miki Chu had a clean competition scoring 70.9 finishing 27th.

The final round was the Intermediate age category.  Jamie Lewis and Tobias Brewer competed for Woking.  Jamie had a brilliant day, finishing an excellent 5th scoring 76.05.  Competing against gymnasts more than 2 years older than him, Jamie also capped off an amazing day winning Pommels with a very impressive routine.  Well done.  Tobias had a much cleaner competition finishing 25th scoring 67.9.
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On Sunday 11th March 2012, 11 gymnasts from Woking travelled to Crawley for the chance to qualify for the National Finals in Birmingham in May.

In the ‘U9 Club’ competition, Jonjo Bennetts & Kristian Butler competed for the very first time. Both gymnasts did well, with Jonjo finishing 6th and booking his place in the finals. ‘U10 Club’ saw Owen Turner also competing well for 6th place – on the way to Birmingham!

Woking didn’t have any gymnasts in the ‘U9 Regional’ competition, but 7 year old Christian Fuoco competed these set routines as a guest in readiness for when he will do them for real next year.

The ‘U10 Regional’ competition saw Adam Siddeeq claim Gold, Jasper Smith-Gordon won Silver & Joseph Frankland came 4th. All 3 are Finals bound!

Woking had just the one gymnast in ‘U11 Regional’, and James Miller didn’t disappoint, coming 4th, and securing his place in Birmingham.

We had a 1-2-3 in the ‘U12 Regional’ competition – Jamie Lewis 1st, Lorenzo Carrozzo 2nd, and Leon McHugh 3rd. Again, all 3 qualifying for the National Finals.

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On Friday 2nd March the English Championship began in Europa Gymnastics Club.

Jamie Lewis competed in the Boy’s age category.  Jamie performed brilliantly scoring well on five apparatus, unfortunately Jamie fell twice on pommels finishing in 3rd place all-around scoring 72.550.  Jamie also finished 1st on Floor, 3rd on Rings and High Bar. 

The next age category was the Senior group competing on the Saturday.  Woking had Harry Carter, Tom Defina and Bradley McBride competing.

Harry made some silly mistakes finishing 7th scoring 74.40, Tom competed on all 6 apparatus for the first time in over three years finishing 7th scoring 72.634.  Bradley competed on four apparatus just missing out on a medal on High Bar.

The final age group competing on the Sunday was the Junior age category.  Tobias Brewer and Miki Chu competed for Woking with Tobias finishing 22nd scoring 65.534 and Miki finishing 23rd scoring 64.933.

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Huge Medal Haul 
Woking gymnasts won 7 medals in last weekends competition.
We are extremely proud of all the gymnasts that took part in this prestigious event.
 

    
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Grant Gardiner represented Wales at the 2011 Northern European Championship in Uppsala Sweden.

Grant won the title of Northern European Champion in 2010, however in February this year Grant severely twisted his knee dismounting from Rings.  As a result Grant tore his ACL and cartilage and had to have major knee reconstruction.

Grant’s dedication and maturity during his rehabilitation resulted in a speedy recovery, meaning he could compete for Team Wales in this year’s event.

Grants contribution to the team was amazing; he scored the highest score in the competition on three of the four apparatus he competed on and was influential in Wales winning the Northern European Team Championship title.



Grant also qualified for three apparatus finals.  Unfortunately with a few small errors, a snapped Ring hand guard in warm-up and some suspect judging resulted in Grant finishing 6th on Pommels; 4th on Rings and 4th on Parallel bars.

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On the 4th November Jamie Lewis travelled with British Gymnastics to Milan in Italy for the 4th Memorial Bertolazzi International. 

It was Jamie’s first International competing for Great Britain.  He performed brilliantly finishing in 2nd place in the All-Around scoring 73.55 and helping the team finish 2nd.  It was a great result for such a young British team consisting of 2 eleven and 2 twelve year old gymnasts.  They were competing in an Under 18 competition and Jamie, being the youngest in the team showed what depth and quality GB gymnastics has with his mature performance.

All the boy’s coaches at Woking and Great Britain are very proud of Jamie and are looking forward to a very big year in 2012.

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In only their second competition in the Silver category, Jemma and Heather both performed well. Heather, as the only competitor in the under 11 age group, overcame a few aches and pains to take the gold medal scoring 15.00. In the under 15s, Jemma recovered well from an uncharacteristic error in her floor routine to perform a particularly nice half on half off vault and achieve the joint highest vault score for girls on the day. Both gymnasts can take a lot of positives from their performances which will undoubtedly give them confidence ahead of the Surrey Bronze Silver Gold competition which takes place in October.  

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A big well done to all who took part in our club championships yesterday!  

A great time was had by all - from our youngest display member at age 3 to our oldest at 75!!

The competition scores are now available in the members section. 
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On Sunday 19th June our Woking girls took part in the Pegasus Open in Maidstone, an Individual Voluntary Competition with all round and apparatus medals.

Woking was entered in the level 4, 3 and 2 categories with girls competing both in and out of age.

Anna, Chloe and Danielle competed in the level 4 competition.  The girls all performed well and gained some valuable competition experience in readiness for the regional finals in September.  Danielle was 9th overall in the in-age competition and awarded a very well deserved 5th place for her lovely beam routine.  Anna also performed a lovely, clean beam routine to give her 5th position in the out of age competition.  Chloe performed a nice, clean routine on bars to give her 6th position in the out of age competition.

The level 3 category saw a total of 30 competitors taking part (10 in-age / 20 out), including 5 girls from Woking – Sophie Miller (out), Paige Hewitt (out), Natasha Brewer (out), Zadesha Thobias (in) and Rachel Cordell (in).  All the girls performed well and got the opportunity to practice some of their new skills and build on these after Horsham in preparation for the regional and national finals later on in the year.  Competition was strong both in and out of age, with a couple of National Squad girls taking part. Rachel performed exceptionally well in her routines including a 13.5 score on beam, resulting in 2 Silver medals and a Bronze in the All-Around competition.  Zadesha had a good solid performance particularly on the Vault resulting in 5th position. Sophie deserved a special bravery award for a nasty fall on Beam, after which she popped back on and completed one of the hardest routines of the day without a second thought – a true sportswoman!  Natasha also performed well, finishing 5th on Bars. Paige only competed on 2 apparatus due to injury but still finished 6th on beam!

Amber Stevens competed in the level 2 in-age category. She performed all her routines exceptionally well and showed a high level of difficulty particularly on the beam, executing her new double back off bars with great success! Amber’s scores were high and well deserved, so it was no surprise that she collected Gold medals in each of the apparatus, resulting in Gold in the All-Around competition!  Well done Amber, fantastic work and great preparation going forward to the level 2 finals in November.

Another good day for Woking – well done girls!!

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