2019 Grades National Finals – Yorkshire Teams
It’s been a busy few months for Yorkshire Women’s Artistic Community and it’s time to catch up on reporting and celebrating the hard work of gymnasts, coaches, judges and the WTC itself. Back in April following the Yorkshire Grades the gymnasts who qualified for National Finals were the first to try out the new National Team Training programme.
In 2019 the YGA WTC has separated the National Team Training from the Squad programme in order to increase the number of sessions and to make those sessions fully focused on the qualifying teams.
Although the sessions were organised by members of the WTC the aim was to let the sessions belong to the coaches and the gymnasts, with them telling the WTC how they wanted it to work and what they needed. This approach was to give the coaches and gymnasts chance to work as a team and as was only to be expected from the fantastic members of our region, they did just that.
The 2 sessions took place 2 weeks apart with the coaches choosing the first session to be focussed on skills and team structure, the second on routines and judge’s feedback.
With the team training behind them in May, four full national grade teams headed down as well as our successful compulsory gymnasts.
The compulsory gymnasts competed first on the 11th/12th May.
Although not full teams so unable to place in the team competition the individual gymnasts did themselves proud with Leila Lih (Dronfield) in Compulsory 3 achieving a fantastic 7th place on vault to give her an overall score over 60. In Compulsory 3 Lexi Mortimer (Gymmagic) and in Compulsory 4 Olivia Munro (Dronfield) both achieved a super top 20 place on apparatus, vault and bars respectively.
These were tough competitions working to the highest standards in the country and the 3 Yorkshire gymnasts were able to return home with pride at a job well done.
The National Grade teams followed shortly afterwards on the 25th/26th May
The National 1 Team consisted of Louise Akers (Diamonds) Georgie King (Leeds), Florence Stoney (Gymmagic), Jessica Rodgers (Sheffield Workshop) and Lola Pritchard (Sheffield Workshop) in reserve. These experienced consummate professionals represented the region to a resounding 5th team place. There were some fantastic highlights with Georgie achieving 8th on vault, 4th on bars, 2nd on floor and 7th overall. Louise delivered a super 4th on vault, Florence 1st on bars and 5th on range and Jessica a solid top half result on 3 pieces and overall. The combination of good solid results all round from all of the team meant that Yorkshire placed well and looked good in this tough National Arena.
Not to be outdone the National 2 team also delivered a resounding 5th place. The best National 2 result for several years. The team consisted of Summer Elbortoukaly (Harrogate), Poppy Wilkinson (Leeds), Elsie Grieg (Sheffield Workshop), Jessica Burton (Sheffield Workshop) and Holly Blake (Elmfield) in reserve. The results were headed up fantastically by Poppy with a 3rd on vault, 7th on bars, 1st on floor, 4th on range and a 4th overall. Elsie delivered a super 8th on vault. 9th on floor and a resounding 9th all round. Summer and Jessica delivered solid all round scores for the team with Summer coming 6th on vault. The combined efforts of these gymnasts saw Yorkshire again standing with heads held high amongst the nation’s regions.
The National 3 team had the unfortunate news of 2 injured gymnasts shortly before the competition date however the reserves stepped in at very short notice and with good spirit whilst sending their condolences to the disappointed gymnasts who had unfortunately had to step down. The team work across clubs to deal with this really was outstanding.
The National 4 team, last in the report but by no means least, delivered for the region with an extremely respectable 6th team place. The team were Anna Forbes (Harrogate) Evie Bottomley – Probst (Harrogate), Imogen Thompson (Gymmagic), Mia O’Neill (Gymmagic) and Libby Wilson (Dronfield) in reserve.
Anna demonstrated what good all round scores can do, she placed 8th on beam and only narrowly missed top ten on 3 other pieces meaning that she delivered a fantastic 5th place overall. Evie delivered fantastic 13’s on 2 pieces, Mia and Imogen super 12 plus scores on 3 pieces each. It shows the standard of this competition that high scores were narrowly missing out on top ten places. However good all round performances were what the team needed and the gymnasts came through to ensure that Yorkshire had yet another good all round result to celebrate.
Below are team pictures showing our Yorkshire gymnasts quite rightly enjoying a sense of achievement. This set of results across all of the competitions is one of the strongest and most consistent that Yorkshire has delivered for some time. A very big well done to you all, coaches and gymnasts alike. Below is a gallery of our great gymnasts.
