On Thursday Mum, Dad and me drove to Redbridge Sports Centre in Essex. It took 4 and half hours in the car. It was a long drive. I did all my maths homework in the car and emailed it to my teacher 😂 The life of a competing gymnast! 😂 I still felt like I had a cold and cough. We met Kelly there. Podium training started at 4.15pm. It was a chance to run through my routines, which is the first time there has been podium training for a comp of mine. There was brand new Gymnova equipment! We were the first group in so we were the very first to use it.

I had a good session, and felt ready. Kelly did my hair then we went to our hotel. We saw some other coaches and gymnasts there too.

Friday 1 March 2019

My first English Gymnastics Championships. I am an Espoir gymnast now so compete against two year groups which are 11 year olds, 12 year olds and 13 year olds. I know many of the first year Espoir, many are my friends, but I don’t know the second years. There were 3 rounds of gymnasts today in the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics (WAG) Espoir Category. I was in the first round and we got to the Sports Centre at 7.30am. It was quite quiet there then. 😂

 

 

After our warm up upstairs, we came into the arena to warm up on the apparatus. Then we had to march in for the competition. It went dark and we had lights and music while our names were read out.

 

 

My first rotation was Vault. I only had one vault. I went clean. The judges didn’t put their hands up to say they were ready for me to go. I didn’t know when to go, I had to look at the big screen to read my name and the GO next to it! On all the other pieces the judges put their hands up.

 

 

Then it was Bars. My warm up was a bit wobbly. The bars seemed slippery. My routine went well. I went clean. I didn’t think my bars was really really amazing, but people kept telling me it was really good!

 

 

 

Then we went to rest rotation.

Then Beam. My free cartwheel and free walkover was nice. ☺ I was happy with that.

 

 

 

Then Floor. It felt like my floor at the gym.

 

 

 

My last rotation was rest again.

After the first round of about 30 gymnasts I was placed first AA, first on bars and third on beam.

I was happy I was in the first round to get my routines done. There were two more rounds of gymnasts to go. 🤞 🤸‍♂️

We then stayed with Kelly and watched the other two rounds all day!!! 🤪 🤪 At the end of the afternoon Mike, Ryan, George and Adam arrived from Falcons. It was great to see them. They were going to do their podium training after our comp.

We also saw Ellie Downie, Kelly Simm, Claudia Fragapane, Amelie Morgan, Phoebe Jakubczyk and Alice Kinsella. They are amazing Senior gymnasts 😍 They were signing autographs.

Alice is my British gym idol. I used Kelly’s phone to get a selfie with her! ☺ 🎉

 

At 8pm it was the medal presentation ceremony. I didn’t know the final results before we had to march in with the boys that had competed that day too. There were 97 girls, so we had to line up in two lines in front of each other. There were so many of us!

Oh my days, I came 6th AA. I also came 6th on Beam and got a BRONZE 🥉 medal on Bars. I am really happy. I want to say a big thank you to Kelly for helping me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.gymdata.co.uk/events/scores.aspx?type=individual&eid=913&coid=1

We left at 8.40pm and went to get some food and then drove 2 hours to Swindon. It was such a long day. I slept in the car as I was so tired. We stayed in a hotel for the night.

 

Saturday 2 March. Good luck to the Falcons boys at the English Champs today and tomorrow. I am now in the car while Dad drives us back to Devon. I need to get back in the gym at 12pm to keep training. The life of an elite gymnast 😂 😂 🤸‍♂️. Only 10 days until The British Championships!!! 💪 🤞

 

 

https://www.british-gymnastics.org/news-and-events/news/latest-news/8168-schedule-announced-for-2019-gymnastics-british-championships

 

Thank you for reading this and supporting me in what I do. 🤸‍♂️

Fliss x