News at Summerfields Gymnastics Club
Inter-County competition
At an inter-county competition hosted by Sussex Gymnastics Association, the Level 4 Womens Artistic Team was led to victory by 9 year old Tamara Ballancore, the youngest member of the team. This is the second year running that Tamara has been chosen to represent her county.
Tamara attends Blacklands Primary School, trains at Summerfields Gymnastics Club and is coached by former British Champion Emma Ballancore.
The Sussex team started on bars and Tamara was pleased to gain first place performing the most difficult routine of the team, incorporating her newly acquired skills.
Next was a slightly nervous looking beam routine, executing a back walkover flic joined, finishing with a perfect round off tuck back somersault dismount. This placed her second on beam, and strengthened the team’s score.
Tamara’s performance on floor showed a beautifully executed full twisting back somersault. Her coach Emma Ballancore said “Her floor is her strongest piece. You can tell how much she enjoys it by her performance - smiling through the whole routine. Tamara was trying out eight new skills at this competition which is huge achievement for someone so young. Normally a gymnast would take out one, maybe two new skills per competition. So for her to try eight and still come out on top is fantastic”
The gymnasts from Sussex Level 4 team were jubilant with their win, and Tamara very proud to be awarded a gold medal for the best individual performance.
British Champion and Silver Medalist
It was a fantastic feat for three gymnasts from Summerfields Gymnastics Club to qualify for the British Tumbling Championships, and an even greater achievement for two of the three to return with medals, proving they are the best in the country at their individual level and age group.
First was nine year old Tamara Ballancore, who has already shown winning ability in Women’s Artistic discipline of the sport, was now competing in a group of fourteen other qualifiers from all over the country at Elite Level 1 Tumbling for 9 and 10 year olds. Nerves were set aside despite the large and unfamiliar surroundings of Fenton Manor Sports Complex in Stoke, and the full pomp and ceremony of a British Championships event.
There were three set tumble runs to execute, but on the top scoring eight tumblers from the first two runs would go through to the third run. The first series of roundoff, whip, flic, flic tuck back somersault was performed well to a solid landing, but lacked full kickout on the somersault. The second demanding run of roundoff, six flics, tuck back somersault was nearly faultlessly performed, and put her into first position. Everything then depended on the final run of roundoff, flic, flic, straight back somersault to retain this position. Her confidence and ability shone through and she completed it successfully to become a British Champion.
The next day brought sisters Libby and Paige Begbie to the event competing at NDP Level 1 in their relevant age groups Libby, in the nine to ten year old group was well focussed and prepared and gave a great performance in her first tumble of roundoff, flic, jump half turn, roundoff flic straight jump - putting her in the lead. Her second tumble of handspring, roundoff, flic, flic, straight jump with half turn was virtually perfect until the final move when she missed the half turn jump. Unfortunately this mistake cost her a place in the final eight.
Sister Paige was well aware of how easily a place on the podium could be lost, and calmly took her place with the other ten tumblers in the 11-12 year old category. Both her first and second runs pleased the judges, and her scores put her in the lead before the final tumble. - A gold medal was within reach. Paige performed a tidy final run with good technique and rhythm, but just had a minor step on landing. Gold medal slipped away, but a silver medal was still a great achievement at the end of a very long weekend.
Dover Boys Floor & Vault competition
9 year old Lewis Standivan attends Blacklands primary school and spends time at the weekend at Summerfields Gymnastics club training for competitions. The most recent was at Dover Gymnastics Club. This was an invitational competition for boys and Lewis was against seven other clubs. Lewis is still very new to Floor & Vault competitions but kept his nerve the whole time showing great confidence.
This was also a new competition for Dover Gymnastics Club and hiccups were bound to happen. Lewis had been practising his vault on an up to date table vault but the only vault available on the day was an old style vaulting horse. At the last minute Lewis had to change the vault he had spent so long practising in the gym and quickly find another he could do. Only just managing to have three practice vaults Lewis then flew over the vault on his competition run earning him Gold. Once on floor Lewis was in his element and went through his floor routine without a hitch giving him the top place on floor.
Lewis proved his hard work in the gym pays off coming home with an overall gold. His coach Matthew Whyte said “I am very pleased with Lewis’s performance today - he works hard in training and deserved the top spot. There are not many competitions around like this, and need to be more to encourage more boys into the sport”.
Tumbling National Finals
Gymnastics includes several disciplines, and Summerfields Gymnastics Club has always been involved in Womens Artistic. Over recent times the club has extended its interest to other areas of the sport, including freestyle and the pairs and trio work of acro. During the last year the club decided to add tumbling to its specialist areas, and after updating their technical knowledge the coaches were ready to raise the profile of tumbling within the club.
The first major competition involving Summerfields Gymnasts was the Regional Tumbling Championships in November 2009, which they used to assess their standard. The following months were taken up with specific work plans to improve technique and style.
The strategy paid off and at the recent South East Region National Tumbling Qualifier event at the K2 Centre in Crawley eight gymnasts competed. Each competitor has to perform three different tumble runs along a sprung track, and only the top scorer at each level goes to the National Finals. All the Summerfields girls performed to a very good standard. Four came home with medals, and in addition, three of these gymnasts qualified for the national finals to be held in Stoke in May.
The seven National 1 and National 2 girls had tough competition against 40 other gymnasts in their levels, and were extremely pleased with their results, especially with Libby Begbie achieving the highest overall score of the day with 79.700.
The clean performances from Josie Martin, Nowdla Sturgeon and Ashleigh Rowe were very close in marks with 75.100, 74.800 and 74.600 respectively.
Tamara Ballancore had previously entered the Regional Tumbling at National 1, but during the following months achieved sufficient standard to jump three levels to attempt the Elite Grade 1 for the Regional Qualifier competition. Although in the 9/10 age group she was the only competitor, she knew that she had to work hard to achieve the required score. On her very first run she made a crucial mistake and missed one of the elements and thought that her chance was lost. However she fought hard to maintain her technique and composure for the remaining two runs and was rewarded with good scores to bring her above the qualifying score of 70.00, and a place on the rostrum and national final.
Libby Begbie Gold National 1 9/10 years Qualified for finals
Megan Welch Silver National 1 9/10 years
Paige Begbie Gold National 1 11/12 years Qualified for finals
Paige Durling 7th National 1 11/12 years
Tamara Ballancore Gold Elite 1 9/10 years Qualified for finals
Last modified: Jun 9, 2010
