Daniel Purvis has been crowned the 2011 men’s gym­nas­tics British cham­pion. Hav­ing shared the crown with Sam Hunter in 2010, Dan made cer­tain of being the out­right win­ner in a nail-biting com­pe­ti­tion with his last rou­tine, a 16.000 on vault, secur­ing the title. William Trood, Frank Baines, Brinn Bevan and Loukas Jones took the age-group titles.

Full details here

Online video of the comp here

GB has not one but two Senior men’s cham­pi­ons as Sam Hunter and Daniel Purvis tied for all-around gold at the men’s artis­tic gym­nas­tics cham­pi­onships in Leices­ter this weekend.

The two recently placed an impres­sive 5^th (Purvis) and 9^th (Hunter) at the World Cham­pi­onships. Purvis also won bronze in Rot­ter­dam on floor, which also was his high­est score at the british champs too.

5 mem­bers of Berkham­sted G.C. top girls squads met Russ­ian Rhyth­mic Olympic Cham­pi­ons Tatiana Gor­bunova and Mar­garita Aliy­chuk at County Squad train­ing on Sun­day 7^th November. 

Poppy and Amelia (stand­ing front right in black leo­tards) were put through their paces by Tatiana and Mar­garita dur­ing a tuff stretch­ing session. 

Although stretch­ing is a very impor­tant part of Artis­tic Gym­nas­tics it is a vital part of Rhyth­mic Gym­nas­tics.  Tatiana and Mar­garita showed the girls just how flex­i­ble they could become if they stretched prop­erly every session.

Amaz­ing Gold, Sil­ver and Bronze won at the 2010 World cham­pi­onships appa­ra­tus finals by British Gymnasts!

Daniel Purvis led the days com­pe­ti­tion by per­form­ing a bril­liant Floor rou­tine to gain a bronze medal swiftly fol­lowed by a nail-biting Pom­mels final for Louis Smith who just missed out on gold by 0.1 to gain the Sil­ver medal posi­tion with the high­est dif­fi­culty to date. To close the day, Beth Twed­dle com­pleted a stun­ningly clean rou­tine on asym­met­ric Bars to win the Gold medal place and prove British Gym­nas­tics is def­i­nitely on the rise in the world arena.

Daniel and Louis’s routines

A-Bars final

Full cov­er­age of Day 1 appa­ra­tus finals.

Not only that, but the British Mens Squad qual­i­fied in 4^th place over­all, a fan­tas­tic achieve­ment as they only hoped to be in the top 25 this year! Read here for more with video footage.

Level 2 Championships

Saskia and Shan­non com­peted at the Regional OOA Level 2 Cham­pi­onships in Ipswich on Sat­ur­day 16^th Octo­ber.  Both gym­nasts had a good com­pe­ti­tion.  Saskia fin­ished in 4^th place over all in the 12–13 age cat­e­gory with a score of 43.100 win­ning bronze on Bars and Floor with team mate Shan­non win­ning the Sil­ver medal over­all in the 14+ Age group with a score of 42.200, tak­ing sil­ver on Floor and bronze on vault and beam.

FIG Cham­pi­onships

Clau­dia com­peted in the pres­ti­gious FIG Espoir cat­e­gory at the Regional Cham­pi­onships on Sun­day 17^th Octo­ber.  Clau­dia had an excel­lent com­pe­ti­tion, with clean  rou­tines on all pieces and achiev­ing her per­sonal best score of 43.100 plac­ing her in 6^th place over­all.  She was awarded a sil­ver medal for vault with a mas­sive score of 12.800 miss­ing out on the gold by only .15 of a mark.

Luke Fol­well (Hunt­ing­don GC) has led the Eng­lish medal charge at the Com­mon­wealth Games by tak­ing the Men’s All Around title, with team-mate Reiss Beck­ford (South Essex GC) in Sil­ver. The result fol­lows Team Sil­vers for the Eng­lish Men and Women in the open­ing days of com­pe­ti­tion. Home Nation gym­nasts now look for­ward to the Artis­tic appa­ra­tus event finals, with the Rhyth­mic Gym­nas­tics event begin­ning next week.

See news video at the BBC site…

View the indi­vid­ual Mens finals broad­cast on iplayer…

View the Mens Team finals on iplayer…

East­ern Region In-Age Level 5 and 4 Championships

Poppy aged 8 and Amelia aged 9 com­peted in the East­ern Region’s In-Age Level 5 and 4 Cham­pi­onships on Sat­ur­day 25^th Sept.

Poppy com­peted in the Level 5 com­pe­ti­tion and had a good com­pe­ti­tion fin­ish­ing in 6^th place over­all.  Poppy was awarded a Bronze medal for the 3^rd high­est vault score.

Squad mate Amelia had a tough com­pe­ti­tion com­pet­ing against the top 20 gym­nasts at Level 4 in the age 9 cat­e­gory.  She fin­ished in 12^th place over­all with a respectable score of 41.20.

Well done girls!!!!

Level 4

Amelia wins the 9yr old age cat­e­gory & is crowned Hert­ford­shire County Champion.

Amelia was the only gym­nast in Hert­ford­shire to com­pete in the In-Age 9 year old cat­e­gory at Level 4.  Even though she had no imme­di­ate com­pe­ti­tion she had an excel­lent com­pe­ti­tion fin­ish­ing with a score of 41.60, beat­ing many gym­nasts scores who were in older age groups.  Amelia com­pet­ing at her age at this high level is an excel­lent achieve­ment for both her­self and Berkham­sted Gym­nas­tics Club, Amelia is on the route to com­pete at British Level.

Squad mate Erin com­peted in the 10/11 age cat­e­gory also hav­ing an excel­lent com­ple­tion fin­ish­ing with a score of 41.55, win­ning the bronze rib­bon on Bars & plac­ing 6^th overall.

Level 2 and FIG

Saskia wins the 12/13 age cat­e­gory @ Level 2 and is crowned Hert­ford­shire County Cham­pion, with Squad mate Shan­non win­ning the 14+ age cat­e­gory also being crowned Hert­ford­shire County Champion.

Saskia & Shan­non both had excel­lent com­pe­ti­tions. All their hard work paid off when they took home a bun­dle of appa­ra­tus Rib­bons, medals & tro­phies.  Shan­non was also awarded the sil­ver plat­ter for the high­est floor score at level 2.

Squad mate Clau­dia com­peted in the pres­ti­gious FIG Espoir cat­e­gory win­ning bronze medal over­all and tak­ing home three appa­ra­tus rib­bons.  Clau­dia had an excel­lent com­pe­ti­tion despite only returned to full train­ing the Fri­day night before the com­pe­ti­tion after she sus­tained an injury train­ing in the USA over the summer.

Excit­ing new tram­po­line course starts this term on Mon­days 4:15pm-5:15pm

Click here for the Tram­po­line Class Details

Did you know that the new ‘Spi­der­man’ actor Andrew Garfield is a for­mer gym­nast? He won a medal at the NDP’s when he was 13 years old!

Hey, who can beat a gymnast?!