Arun gymnasts taste Sussex success

The club’s only representative on the Saturday was Olivia Bricker, who competed in the national level three tumbling for 13-plus girls. She gained two second places and one first from her three tumbling runs and earned a well-deserved silver medal.

On the Sunday it was the turn of the artistic (four-piece) and floor and vault competitors and first up were the level-five gymnasts.

Gabriella Noviello was in the modified event where a series of steady results meant she was narrowly outside the medals in overall fifth, with the best of her four pieces being the floor, where she placed third.

Olivia Pinchbeck was competing in age and finished a very respectable fifth after posting a consistent series of four top-six individual apparatus places.

Lucy Aldred was competing out of age and had two very strong individual apparatus performances which earned her second on vault and fourth on beam and helped her to Arun’s third fifth-place finish.

Two of Arun’s floor and vault competitors were up next in the 12-14 girls’ categories. Emily Day was competing at bronze level and she finished in overall sixth following a fifth on vault and sixth on floor while Lucy Stephenson-Gill, competing at silver level, had her best individual apparatus score on the vault that saw her placed third.

Olivia Kirkwood and Molly Evans were in the women’s artistic level-four competitions with Molly competing out of age and Olivia in the modified competition.

Molly put in a outstanding effort and finished in a very impressive overall fourth place with her best individual apparatus score coming from a third-place on beam. Olivia had two really excellent third places on both vault and bars and a good fifth place on floor.

The last competitors for Arun were Jordan Kitchen and Chantal Mawbey in the 15-plus age groups with Jordan competing at bronze level and Chantal at silver.

Both girls finished the competition with medals. Jordan’s excellent consistency saw her placed second on both vault and floor, which earned her silver, while Chantal picked up bronze for third place after an excellent second-place vault and fifth on floor.

Head coach Mandy Hawkins was pleased with some great individual apparatus performances from the gymnasts and will now focus their training towards their grading competitions early next year.

Pictured from left to right, back row at the top of the article: Molly Evans and Olivia Pinchbeck; middle row, Grace Markey, Gabriella Noviello and Lucy Aldred; front row: Lucy Stephenson-Gill, Emily Day, Olivia Kirkwood, Chantal Mawbey and Jordan Kitchen.