NDP Finals 2018 – East’s Record Medal Tally

Fresh from the East’s successes at last month’s Regional Team Finals, 60 Trampoline and DMT gymnasts from our Region competed in the NDP Finals 2018. These took place at Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena over the second weekend of July and East came home with no fewer than 29 medals, the region’s best ever showing.

DMT

As last year, Pegasus was dominant among the region’s DMT entries. From their 10 competitors, Edward Parkin and Leo Gaeta both won golds, Imogen Mayhew got silver and both Megan Perkins-Abudu and Leo’s older brother Max a bronze.

Anna Weir from Marriotts Gymnastics Club also won gold and will be hoping her team-mates do well at the British Championships in September; Marriotts is the only club in the region to have DMT gymnasts invited to that event.

Carter Fenn and Neve Jones from HBS Revolutions both got silvers. Neve also had a silver on trampoline, the only gymnast from the region to climb the podium in both disciplines. Dominic Gray from Cambourne Comets, Ciara Lavin from High Springers and Ryan Hadlow from Run DMT all got bronzes.

Trampoline

There were fewer medals on trampoline this year than last, 18 compared to 22 in 2017. However, there were some outstanding performances, Heather Cannon from Apex and Emily Halford from HBS Rotations especially catching the eye with the quality of their execution.

HBS Rotations had a terrific weekend. Its youthful team of 14 gymnasts, a dozen of whom are 12 or younger, brought home 7 trampoline medals to go with the two from DMT. Lola Yeupiksang joined Emily in winning gold as did Ethan Corkin in his disability event. As mentioned earlier, Neve Jones won a silver and there were bronzes for Zack Davies, Noah Welland and Chloe Lawrence.

Colchester School of Gymnastics was another club delighted with its performers as Oliver Moss and Jay Alvarez both won their events. Flight Trampoline Club’s Olivia Collier and Shannon Waterman both jumped neatly for their gold and silver and siblings Chloe and Ryan Storey from Levitation made their parents and coaches proud as they took gold and bronze respectively in their disability sections. Barney Saggers from Brentwood and Clayton Frake-Worthington from Team Twister both took silvers.

Seven gymnasts from just four clubs: Cambridge Cangaroos, Marriotts, Brentwood and Rotations had qualified at Spring Series for the higher, NDP Performance level finals. Gabriel Strydom-Green from Cangaroos and Georgia Tyrrell from Brentwood jumped especially well to win silver and bronze respectively.

Comment

Congratulations to all our competitors; you did yourselves, your clubs and our region proud. We have some very promising and able young gymnasts.

Though we did well at all levels and ages, and equally between the sexes, we had most success in the younger age groups; one-half of all our medalists were aged 12 or younger.

At Trampoline levels 1-6 and at DMT levels 1-7 we had 10% of all entrants and in each discipline won around 11% of all medals. However, we have only 5% of the entries for NDP Performance and FIG combined and these are from just a handful of the region’s clubs. The step up from regional to nationally organised levels is a big one and we should now perhaps consider how we can better nurture our most promising gymnasts to take it.

Pat Dodson, Regional Team Organiser

Last Updated on July 29, 2018 by dave

Please follow and like us: