Ellan Vannin

 Last weekend saw the 9^th annual Isle of Man Gymnastics Association Invitational Competition for girls and boys take place at our recently refurbished Ellan Vannin Gymnastics Club. This was the first time that the event had been held as a joint boys’ and girls’ competition and at times the competition arena was rather frenetic.

Despite stormy weather and a damaged ferry, gymnastics teams from Yorkshire, Milton Keynes, the North West and Scotland fought their way to the Isle of Man for what was yet again a superb competition. Some of the teams on Saturday competed despite having a 22 hour ferry delay and hardly any sleep but despite this they put on a brave face and competed well.

The girls Regional Level 3 team competition was won by Harrogate with a score of 131.267, with newcomers Glasgow taking silver with 128.016 and IOM C the bronze medal with 126.567. There was good performances by York gymnast Charlotte Goodman who took gold medals on both vault and bars and Rebecca Borchard (Harrogate) who took gold on beam and floor. Chloe Davis (Diamonds) won silver on vault by just 0.05 of a point ahead of Rebecca Borchard. Isabel Hester (IOM) put in a tidy performance on bars to tie with Gaynor McGriffen from Glasgow to win silver on bars. Chloe Davey from Diamonds fought off lack of sleep to win another silver this time on beam with IOM gymnast Nicole Burns taking bronze. Nicole Burns also won bronze on floor with a delightful performance and only missed out on the silver by 0.2 of a point which was taken by Amelia Mearns.

In the Junior FIG team competition the IOM D team won gold with 127.069 points almost 10 points ahead of the IOM E team  who took the silver with 117.200 points and Diamonds the bronze medal with 113.500 points. The IOM E team put in some strong performances from Grace Harrison who won gold on bars, beam, floor and also won bronze on vault, Rebecca Johnson who won gold on vault and silver on bars, Emily Dale-Beeton who won silver on floor and Ciara Goddard who won silver on vault and bronze on beam. The IOM D team only won one individual medal, a silver on beam for Holly Black, but their strong overall performance gave them the silver team medal. Diamonds picked up bronze on bars (Laura Walker), beam (Katy Sellars) and floor (Abigail Lampkin).

Sunday saw the girls Regional Level 4 teams compete. After a good night’s rest, the seven teams all competed well and the gold team medal and trophy went to Glasgow with the silver going to Garstang and the bronze medal to IOM A. Ciara Wilders (IOM A) was the only IOM gymnast to win a medal  in this competition and she won a silver on vault.

The IOMGA would like to thanks all of the volunteers for their outstanding contribution at this event, their hard work over the whole the weekend made the competition a great success

Results

Boys Results

Girls Results

Report and Pix to flollow

Senior Team and Set competition

The competition for the last few games has been dominated by Isle of Man and Bermuda but in an outstanding display of elegance and skill the Faroe Island women stole the march on the rest of the teams and took the gold medal, followed by Bermuda in the silver position and Jersey in the bronze. Two falls on floor and an element not completed on the floor resulted in the Isle of Man senior team coming fourth.

Grace Harrison had an excellent competition winning a bronze on bars and finishing second overall. Rhyanne Hancock had a good steady performance on beam and took silver on this apparatus. Two new members to the Island Games fraternity Stacey Saltwell and youngest team member Ciara Goddard put in steady performances to finish 18th and 15th respectively.

Senior Voluntary Competition

The disappointment of the set competition day was soon behind the senior women’s team when they marched out on the voluntary competition floor. All four gymnasts put in fine performances which enabled the team to take a haul of medals between them.
Grace Harrison had a perfect day with clean performances on all four apparatus which resulted in silver on bars, gold on beam, gold overall and the title of senior women’s champion. This is the first time in recent history of the games that an Isle of Man female gymnast has had this success at an Inter Island games and it was a well deserved honour.

Rhyanne Hancock put in a fine performance on vault to take the bronze medal and finished 8th overall. Stacey Saltwell provided an elegant and tidy routine on floor to win a silver medal and finished 11th overall. Ciara Goddard the youngest member of the senior team had a clean beam routine to finish 4th on this apparatus and 10th overall.