NewsPage 1 2 Jun 19, 2009, 8:16 pm
Boys Defend Their Baskerville's Team Trophy
On Sunday 14th of July, five of Sapphire's squad gymnasts went to Bath to compete in the annual Baskerville's Cup. This is a team competition with voluntary routines against clubs from all over the country. Sakyi Acquaah, Charles Adeleke, Arthur Hardman and Lewis Irons made up the under 9s team of 4 boys, and Michael Fryer competed as an individual only in the under 10s competition.
The under 9s team were defending champions from the previous year so expectations were high, and true to form, the boys rose to the challenge and won with a clear 12 marks above the 2nd place team.
In the individual rankings, Sapphire took a clean sweep of the medals, with Arthur in 3rd, Lewis in 2nd and Charles in 1st place. Michael managed a erspectable 6th place in the under 10s age group.
Baskerville's also give out gold medals for each apparatus seperately. Charles won the floor, vault an P-Bars gold, Lewis won the rings gold and Arthur won the Pommel gold.
This was a huge improvement on last year's performance, with a much greater medal haul, and more importantly, much higher scores even though the routine requirements are more difficult every year as the gymnasts get older. Mar 20, 2009, 10:02 am
Sapphire Boys' Regional Success
 On Saturday 7th March, 7 of Sapphire's squad boys competed in the east of england's regional grades championships. Competing in the national club grades were Arthur Hardman, Sakyi Acquaah, Mitchell Bagley and Michael and James Fryer. Competing in the more challenging national performance grades were Charles Adeleke and Lewis Irons.The performance grade boys competed first in the morning, with Charles and Lewis competing in the Level 1 competition. After a closely fought battle between all competitors, Charles won the title of regional level 1 champion, securing the gold medal with a high score of 64.55 and Lewis was a close second with 63.95 The remaining Sapphire gymnasts competed after a successful morning of cheering on their team mates. In the level 1 competition, Arthur performed spectacularly and thoroughly deserved his first competition win, earning gold with a massive 66.0 score. Sakyi managed to come a close second to his team mate to win the silver, scoring 65.15. Sakyi also managed to have the highest score of the day of any level 1 gymnast on any apparatus, gaining 9.85 on the P-Bars. Michael Fryer competed in level 2, and was not only regional champion finishing in 1st place scoring 65.7, but the only gymnast of the entire competition to score over 9 on every piece of apparatus. Mitchell Bagley managed to take home the silver medal in the level 3 competition, and scoring 56.55; much higher than his previous year's competition at the lower level. James Fryer faced very stiff competition at level 5 and finished in a respectable 6th place with a total score of 47.5 and a silver medal on vault. Arthur, Charles, Lewis, Sakyi, Michael and Mitchell have all been selected to represent the East Region in the national finals to be held in Newcastle in May. We wish them all good luck. Nov 26, 2008, 10:36 pm
Boys Success at the Tom Wilson Memorial Competition
Last Sunday saw Sapphire's first time entry into the Tom Wilson Memorial Competition held at Milton Keynes Gymnastics Centre. It is in memory of the former head men's coach of Milton Keynes Gymnastics who sadly died suddenly 3 years ago.
Competing in the under 8 category were Sakyi Acquaah, Charles Adeleke, Arthur Hardman and Lewis Irons. Michael Fryer was competing in the under 9 category. The competition is a national event with clubs from all over England and the Isle of Man competing, as well as boys from Austria who came over to compete.
Charles Adeleke performed his routines to a very high degree of accuracy and perfection, finishing in 2nd place, very close to the winner. Lewis Irons managed to finish in 4th place, and only just missed out on the bronze medal. However, he did win apparatus medals. He finished 3rd on Pommels and on P-Bars. Charles managed to get gold medal position on Pommels, Vault and High Bar, and silver on the P-Bars. Sakyi and Arthur performed superbly too, scoring over 9 or very close to 9 out of 10 on all apparatus. Arthur came in 8th overall position and Sakyi 10th.
Michael competed well and managed to finish in 12th overall place in a very tightly contested competition. Despite just missing out on the top 10, Michael was the best on High Bar winning the gold for that apparatus and a silver medal for Pommel and P-Bars. Nov 25, 2008, 2:18 pm
Sapphire Girls Sparkle
The East Region 2008 Inter-County team competition was held in Ipswich on Saturday November 15th and the two Herfordshire teams won both the level 3 and full FIG categories. Sapphire Gymnastics had 4 of the five Herfordshire team members at Level 3 and they were, Imogen Davies, Kim Shaw, Hayleigh Griffiths and Grace Brazer. In the FIG category, the Herfordshire team had 3 Sapphire Gymnasts in the team of 4 and they were Jessica Barfoot, Abby Buttle and Louise Everton.
The following day saw the Hertforshire 2008 Team Championships for Level 5, Level 4, Level 3 and Level 2. Sapphire won all four categories making a clean sweep of the medals. The teams consisted of Teal Grindle, Jessica Shaw, Lucy Hutchison and Rachel Weinberger at Level 5. Imogen Davies, Hayleigh Griffiths and Samantha Davy at Level 4. Kim Shaw, Grace Brazer and Taise Selwyn at Level 3. Louise Everton, Abby Buttle and Jessica Barfoot at Level 2. Special individual trophies were also awarded to Imogen Davies for the highest overall score of the day at Level 4 and to Jessica Barfoot for the highest Floor score at Level 2.
Oct 26, 2008, 8:50 pm Sapphire Win 10 Golds in the First Boys County Championships and 5 Golds, 3 silvers and 5 bronze medals in the Herts Girls Level 5 County Championships On 26th October, Marriotts Gymnastics Club hosted the first county championships for boys. All of the Sapphire boys squad who were old enough to compete were taking part, in the under 8, under 10 and under 12 categories, competing against boys from other clubs in the Hertfordshire county. The under 8 and under 10 competitions were only 3 pieces of apparatus while the under 12 was the full 6 pieces. Sakyi Acquaah, Charles Adeleke, Arthur Hardman and Lewis Irons competed in the under 8 category with exceptional quality and managed to impress everyone at the competition. Charles, Arthur and Lewis shared gold, silver and bronze for each piece of apparatus, and in the all around competition, Lewis came in first place to be the first Hertfordshire County Boys Champion. Charles finished in second place and Arthur third, with Sakyi a close fourth. Michal Fryer and Mitchell Bagley competed superbly in the under 10 competition to win 1st and 2nd place respectively in the all around competition, and working hard in their routines to get a bronze and silver on pommel, silver and gold on vault, and gold and silver on floor. James Fryer was the lone Sapphire competitor in the under 12 competition. It was a close fought competition with James competing admirably to win an all around silver medal; gold for floor, rings and vault; silver on parallel bars and high bar, and bronze for pommel. With well over 20 individual medals including 10 golds, the 7 boys from Sapphire have achieved a huge medal horde and we hope they can continue this success next year. Full results of this competition can be found in the competition results section of the website.
In the girls Level 5 competition, Teal Grindle won the 8/9 age group and was 1st on every piece of apparatus with Jessica shaw coming 2nd in the same age category and was 3rd on Vault and Bars and 2nd on Beam.
Rachel Weinberger in the in the age 12/13 catergory was 3rd overall and was also 3rd on Vault and Beam and 2nd on Floor.
Well done to all the Sapphire competitors !!!!!!!! Sep 26, 2008, 8:46 am
Herts County Champs 2008.
Sep 24, 2008, 5:09 pm
One gymnast from Sapphire's adult gymnastics sessions bravely decided to put a leotard back on to compete in the national British Veteran's Championships.
Kirstie Webb competed in the Women's Artistic Recreational over 30s category. After a long day of competition Kirstie finished in 4th place overall. For individual apparatus, she managed to finish in Bronze position for Vault and Silver position for A-Bars.
This was an excellent achievement for someone who has only ever previously trained at novice level recreational gymnastics during their childhood. It was her first ever competition. |
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