Pipers Vale 2021

With many of our men’s artistic squad putting so much time and energy in to preparing for the national grades finals a few weeks ago, only five of our gymnasts attended this year’s Pipers Vale competition.

This event was condensed from its usual weekend running order in to one day of intense competition. The second round saw under 10’s Caden O’Shea and Eden Marlow compete in their first ever competition, having missed out on the grades finals by finishing outside the top 6 at qualifiers. A strong start on the horizontal bar for the boys was followed by some good, clean routines on subsequent pieces. Rings proved to be a stumbling block for the pair with a few costly mistakes but they recovered well and showed great determination, putting in a comfortable performance on the vault. Overall Eden scored 56.15 (16th) and Caden finished on 63.70 (13th). This was a valuable experience for the pair, learning about the pressures of a competition environment and how to bounce back after a mistake.

The final round of the day saw Oscar Mitchell, Jay Coote and Max Veo-Creek all competing in the under 12’s category. Max had a good competition despite recording a fall attempting a new vault and finished 7th with a score of 69.40. He recovered well from his frustrations and put in a strong score on parallel bars, finishing just 0.05 marks off the bronze medal. Oscar proved his excellent vault at the Club Grades was no fluke, losing just 0.10 in deductions to score 11.50, which rewarded him with the bronze medal. With a clean competition he scored 69.25 overall, finishing 9th. The top performer of the day was Jay Coote who also had a clean competition. His standout performance on rings (11.90 scored) won him the gold medal on that apparatus and his 12.10 on horizontal bar earned him the bronze. Overall he scored 70.15, finishing 5th.
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Pipers Vale is always a great competition to go out and try some new skills and gain experience and this year was no different. Plenty of lessons learnt for our newer competitors and some confidence building performances for all. With this being the last competition in the 2021 calendar we are thoroughly looking forward to a productive winter period of learning and refining skills ready for next year’s competitions.