Fenland gym stars

Apologies for the lack of post yesterday - by the time I got home from the gym competition last night, I was shattered.  There was just time to make a speedy supper [two and a half leftover sausages, chopped and cooked in a pan with a tin of tomatoes and some onion gravy powder, served over pasta - for the gang, and a tuna pitta for me!] before I watched Case Histories, and went to bed!

(image from amazon.com)

The gymnastics competition was held in the north of the Fens, hosted by a club there, and there were several clubs in the competition - one from Norfolk, one from south Lincolnshire, and one from Peterborough joined us at the host club to make up five clubs on the day.  It would be a lie to say that the competition was stiff, especially at the lower levels.  There were little six year olds being coaxed and coached through their routines by their coaches, gymnasts bursting into tears because they couldn't remember what they were supposed to be doing, and it was all very relaxed and forgiving - children got another go if needed.

In several categories, our gymnasts were only competing against other gymnasts from our own club, so the competition was good in a sense because we do push them to high standards, and we don't enter children for competition until they are ready.  We were congratulated by one judge in particular on the standard our children achieved on her piece of apparatus, which gave us all a boost!

At the higher levels, where the YFG was competing, the standards shot up.  Even so, she was competing against only three other gymnasts, two from our club and one from Norfolk.  Our three took the medals, with the YFG getting the Gold [proud mummy moment] and the more experienced of the other two getting the silver.  The third placed gymnast has only been with us since September, and had only done Floor and Vault at school prior to that, so we are very pleased with the way she has developed on Bars and Beam to be able to enter a competition already.

It was inspiring for us and for the girls to be able to watch other gymnasts doing more complicated moves that they will need to master before next year as they all need to move up a level if we do that competition again.  

The total medal haul for the club was impressive, and we were very proud of all 19 of the gymnasts we took.