13yr old Clau­dia made her début at the Eng­lish Cham­pi­onships on the 4^th March 2012 as a First Year Junior.  As this was a National com­pe­ti­tion Clau­dia had some extremely tough com­pe­ti­tion as this was many of the com­pet­ing gym­nasts 2^nd year at Junior Level.  Also com­pet­ing in her cat­e­gory were 8 mem­bers of the GB World Class Starter Squad and 3 mem­bers of the Eng­lish Squad.  Clau­dia held her own and com­peted well, per­form­ing clean rou­tines on all appa­ra­tus.  Her over­all score saw her fin­ish in 18^th place with appa­ra­tus rank­ings of 11^th on Vault, 24^th on Bars, 26^th on Beam & 13^th on Floor out of 43 gymnasts.

6 gym­nasts from BGC entered 4 dif­fer­ent lev­els of com­pe­ti­tion over a three day period.

Win­ning 18 x indi­vid­ual judges awards, 2 x sashes, 2 x tiaras, 2 x bar­bies, 2 x 5^th place rosettes & 1 x 2^nd place award.

Day 1: Fri­day 17^th Feb

Amelia com­peted against the best in Britain with 3 mem­bers of the GB World Starter Squad in her com­pe­ti­tion.  Amelia fin­ished in 5^th place over­all beat­ing one of the GB squad mem­bers and win­ning the 5^th place rosette, she was also awarded 2 indi­vid­ual Judges Awards.

Day 2: Sat­ur­day 18^th Feb

Amber win the Miss Alpha Fac­tor Grade 14 Com­pe­ti­tion tak­ing the 1^st place sash, Tiara, Bar­bie and she was also awarded 5 Judges Awards.  Team mate Lydia fin­ished in 5^th place in the same com­pe­ti­tion receiv­ing the 5^th place rosette and receiv­ing 4 judges awards.

Lizzie also com­peted on the same day win­ning the Miss Alpha Fac­tor Grade 13 Com­pe­ti­tion tak­ing the 1^st place sash, Tiara, Bar­bie and she was also awarded 5 Judges Awards.

Day 3: Sun­day 19^th Feb

Poppy and Maya Com­peted in the National Grade 8 com­pe­ti­tion with gym­nasts from clubs as far as Ire­land and Wales.  Poppy fin­ished in 7^th over­all win­ning 2^nd on Range and Con­di­tion­ing and 2 other indi­vid­ual judges awards, while team mate Maya over­came some of her fears and fin­ished in 44^th place.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Amelia for win­ning the East Regions OOA Elite Com­pul­sory Grade 3 com­pe­ti­tion on Sun­day 26^th February.

Amelia passed the Elite Level Grade with fly­ing colours, with her final score of 56.150 greatly exceed­ing the pass mark of 50.000.   Upon doing so she has made BGC his­tory, as she is the first ever mem­ber of BGC’s Women’s Artis­tic Squad to pass the Elite Com­pul­sory Grade 3.

Her hard work and deter­mi­na­tion over the past year paid off at the week­end, when her scores saw her fin­ish in 1^st place on Range and Con­di­tion­ing, Vault, Bars and Beam and 2^nd place on floor.

Amelia is set to con­tinue down the Elite path­way with her eyes set on pass­ing the Elite Com­pul­sory Grade 2 in Novem­ber this year.

Well done and good luck!!!!

Hert­ford­shire Level 5 Team Cham­pi­onships.
Clubs from around Hert­ford­shire put together their best teams to fight for the Hert­ford­shire Level 5 Team Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy on Sat­ur­day 22^nd Octo­ber.  It was a tough com­pe­ti­tion with 7 teams entered from all over Hertfordshire.

BGC Team: Char­lotte, Lucy, Sophie & Lizzy.
The team did well with their team scores placed them in 4^th on vault, 4^th on Bars, 4^th on Beam and 2^nd on Floor, but unfor­tu­nately the 3 falls off beam saw them loss Team Bronze and fin­ish in 4^th place overall.

Indi­vid­u­ally the gym­nasts did well.  All gym­nasts beat their BP scores from the Indi­vid­ual com­pe­ti­tion in Sep­tem­ber with Lucy fin­ish­ing in 3^rd place, Char­lotte in 7^th place, Lizzy in 16^th and Sophie in 22^nd

Well done girls!!!!!

Gym­nast:
Con­grat­u­la­tions to Amelia for being selected to rep­re­sent Hert­ford­shire as part of Hertfordshire’s Level 3 B team in the East­ern Regions Inter Coun­ties Teams Com­pe­ti­tion on Sun­day 13^th Novem­ber.
This is a great hon­our for Amelia as she has only been com­pet­ing at Level 4 this year, but has been selected for the Level 3 team. The Hert­ford­shire County Coach, Svet­lana Trot­ter, feels the stan­dard of Amelia’s Cur­rent rou­tines exceed level 4 and are of a high enough stan­dard to sup­port Hertfordshire’s B team in the upcom­ing com­pe­ti­tion. Amelia will be join­ing forces with 4 other gym­nasts from dif­fer­ent clubs around Here­ford­shire to form the HERTS B Team.
Coach:
The County can only nom­i­nate 2 coaches to work with each team dur­ing the com­pe­ti­tion. For the third year run­ning Claire Thorn­ton (Head of Women’s at BGC) has been selected as one of the Team Coaches. She will be work­ing with the B team dur­ing the final train­ing ses­sion and on the day of competition.

Good news!!!

We did it, our appli­ca­tion and pre­sen­ta­tion was successful.  £3,100.00 is on it’s way for new foam equipment.

There were 19 groups giv­ing pre­sen­ta­tions to win votes from the HP4 residents.

We fin­ished in 9^th, with only the first 11 win­ning the fund­ing they had applied for.

We’d just like to say a big thank you to all par­ents and gym­nasts who turned up to sup­port and vote for the club.  We couldn’t have done it with­out you.

Thanks also to Claire for organ­is­ing the bid etc — Well Done!

DeeTV filmed the vote which you can view here.

Amelia trav­elled to Ipswich on Sun­day 9^th Octo­ber to com­pete in the 10/11 year old cat­e­gory at the Level 4 Regional Finals.

She per­formed well on Floor and Vault, but unfor­tu­nately it wasn’t Amelia’s day on beam.  With 2 falls, it cost her the Over­all Gold and saw her fin­ish in 8^th place.  Her superb bar score of 11.750 meant she was in the run­ning for the Bars Appa­ra­tus Medals.  The appa­ra­tus medals are not awarded in age cat­e­gories but over the whole of the Level 4 for Com­pe­ti­tion, which meant 39 gym­nasts where com­pet­ing for the appa­ra­tus medals.  Amelia was lying in 2^nd place at the end of Round 1 and had a ner­vous wait for the remain­ing 23 gym­nasts to com­pete in Round 2.  Her high score was too dif­fi­cult for the older gym­nasts to beat and Amelia was awarded the Sil­ver medal for Bars. 

Well done Amelia!!!

Make sure you catch all the TV cov­er­age below…

Lat­est News…

British girls secure Olympic qual­i­fi­ca­tion!
Great Britain will be rep­re­sented by a full women’s gym­nas­tics team at the Lon­don 2012 Olympics after a nail-biting fin­ish in the artis­tic gym­nas­tics World Cham­pi­onship qual­i­fi­ca­tion ensured them the all-important top 8 spot and an Olympic team place. The team of Beth Twed­dle, Becky Downie, Han­nah Whe­lan, Danu­sia Fran­cis, Imo­gen Cairns and Jenni Pinches scored 220.553 points to fin­ish in 8^th posi­tion ensur­ing a clear pas­sage through to the Lon­don 2012 Olympics. 

British boys miss auto­matic 2012 place
Great Britain men’s team nar­rowly failed in their mis­sion for a top 8 spot and instant Olympic qual­i­fi­ca­tion after fin­ish­ing 10^th in the men’s qual­i­fy­ing com­pe­ti­tion at the 2011 artis­tic gym­nas­tics World Cham­pi­onships. How­ever, Daniel Purvis and Louis Smith both excelled and headed to the all-around and pom­mel finals respec­tively. The British team will now com­pete (along with teams placed 9–16) in the Olympic Test event at the Green­wich Dome in Jan­u­ary with the aim of a top 4 spot in order to progress the full team to Lon­don 2012.

Daniel Purvis 4^th, Han­nah Whe­lan 9^th — in their respec­tive all-around finals!

BBC cov­er­age

Tues­day 11 Octo­ber
Women’s Team Final
·    1050–1310, BBC Red Button/online
·    1300–1500, BBC Two/online

Wednes­day 12 Octo­ber
Men’s Team Final
·    0950–1240, BBC Red Button/online
·    1330–1530, BBC Two/online

Thurs­day 13 Octo­ber
Women’s All Around Final
·    0950–1155, BBC Red Button/online
·    1300–1500, BBC Two/online

Fri­day 14 Octo­ber
Men’s All Around Final
·    1050–1350, BBC Red Button/online
·    1300–1500, BBC Two/online

Sat­ur­day 15 Octo­ber
Indi­vid­ual Appa­ra­tus Finals
·    0520–0830, BBC Red Button/online
·    1630–1800, BBC Two/online

Sun­day 16 Octo­ber
Indi­vid­ual Appa­ra­tus Finals
·    0550–0905, BBC Red Button/online
·    1600–1730, BBC Two/online