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Wolds Gym girls take
big step up in class
Two of the Wolds Gym Club's top gymnasts competed at York on Sunday with some of Yorkshire's finest.
The Level 4 & 3 championship is the highest level before the Yorkshire Open, using full FIG rules (those of the Olympics).
Kelly Brook was competing in the 16+ years age group and Amy Blacker in a very hotly contested 13+ years.
Not only was it their first competition at this level, but it was also the first time coach Elaine Atkinson had even seen a competition at this level - so it was quite hard to gauge what the standard and degree of difficulty would be.
The first piece was the asymmetric bars. Amy and Kelly have both been performing superbly in the gym with all the difficulty required, and although they were nervous and did not quite perform to their usual ability they still both made good routines that flowed.
The beam was the second piece. Amy managed to perform a back walkover into a back flip (no mean feat on a 4-inch wide piece of wood 4 feet off the ground!). Unfortunately she fell to the side as she was off balance slightly after she landed. Kelly also had falls which brought both their scores down, although there were many falls on the day. There is a bonus for a ‘clean’ routine, but not many gymnasts achieved this all day.
On the floor, both the girls had four somersaults in their routine, a straight back, a tucked back, a tucked front and an Arabian somersault. Alongside the tumbles were a change leg split leap in a dance passage, spins, back flips and walkovers. The Wolds girls do not have a 12m sprung floor to practice on, so during the warm up moves and tumbles tend to be concentrated on and the floor has to be shared with gymnasts from other clubs. Therefore the first and only time they performed their routine was their performance in front of the judges - a task accomplished superbly by both girls.
Finally, in the vault, Kelly performed two Yurcheko vaults, one that no-one else in the competition performed. It involves putting hands down before the springboard so as to land backward on the board and going over the top in a back handspring. She performed this very well and it was definitely her best piece. Amy decided to perform one Yurchenko and one twisting handspring.
Amy completed the day in 12th place, with a silver medal on the vault - a great achievement for a first outing at this high level.
Kelly, in a smaller field of gymnasts at 16+, was in second place overall, after all four pieces were added together.
A championship to build on for the future – well done.
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Weather for Driffield
Thursday 17 May 2012
Today
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