The Headlands School gymnastics team had their first competition at Sheffield High School recently.
This was the ‘Milano Team’ event in which gymnasts had to perform an individual routine, a vault and a group routine. The competition, which is usually held in January, meant that gymnasts have been working tirelessly to get ready for the competition with new moves and music since last year.
The school entered three teams; Under 13 mixed (Toby Gee, Sian Beswick and Sienna Collinson), under 13 girls (Lily Voase, Ellie Hughes and Jessie Hoggart) and under 19 girls (Louise Blackburn, Natasha Clifton and Ellie Binnington).
Rebecca Hoult, head of PE said: “All the gymnasts performed extremely well with some very high scores. In the 8 years that the school have entered the competition, this years event has been the highest attended and also one of the toughest as the standard of competition in Yorkshire gets higher and higher each year. To qualify for the National Championships in Stoke, teams had to place either first or second.”
The under 13 mixed team came first with Sian taking the top prize of individual top scorer in this category with Toby coming second and Sienna third. This enabled them as a team to take the gold medal and qualify for Nationals. The under 13 girls team had an extremely hard competition against some very experienced schools. This however did not phase them with the team coming second overall and Ellie Hughes taking the individual top scorer award and Jessie coming third which was fantastic. They also qualify for Nationals. The under 19 girls team fought valiantly and did themselves proud coming third overall, just missing out on a place at Nationals.
Work is now well under way for the second competition which is the Yorkshire Floor and Vault Championships held at Haltemprice Leisure Centre on Sunday 4th March. This will feature many more of our gymnasts, some of which have never competed at competitions before. The following week will see the teams travel to Stoke for the National finals on Saturday 17th March. Congratulations to all the gymnasts involved.
