A large party of gymnasts, parents and their coaches recently attended the Spooky Spectacular competition held at the City of Newcastle Gymnastics Centre.

With 750 competitors entered over three days, this was a big event therefore the coaches and the lone judge from the club were in for some very long days.

With so many excellent gymnasts from the whole of the UK taking part, and this being the first off-island competition for many, the Ellan Vannin Gymnastics Centre representatives focussed on improving their individual scores and achieving milestones over a certain score.

Starting with the youngest gymnasts in the zinc category where Jade Falconer and Autumn Ryles competed against 69 other gymnasts. Jade joined the 40 club with a total score of 40.25, while Autumn achieved 42.050 to finish a fine 26th out of 71.

In the junior copper category five gymnasts took part: Holly Watt, Phoebe Christian, Phoebe Keelan, Megan Charmer and Kaitlyn Lewin.

The latter gained the ribbon for sixth place on vault and all five achieved scores over 10 on floor, with Phoebe, Kaitlyn and Megan also scoring over 10 on bars. With her all round score, Kaitlyn joined the 40 club.

The senior copper gymnasts, Darcy Astall and Kayleigh Ann Lewin, scored well on bars with an over-11 score for Darcy and over-10 for Kayleigh Ann. Both girls scored over 10 on floor and Darcy joined the 40 club with her overall score.

The club had one lone gymnast in the harder bronze group where Alice Teare scored over 10 on floor and vault.

In the younger silver group, Aine Matthews competed and started with an excellent third place on vault, which was then followed by a silver medal on bars and beam.

An uncharacteristic fall on floor kept her out of the medals on this piece, but Aine still finished in overall fourth place with a great score of 43.033.

Hermione Parry and Naomi Maddrell took part in the senior silver level and both performed excellent vaults to score over 11. Naomi stayed on the dreaded beam to score over 10 and they both recorded over 40 all around.

In the gold juniors, Georgia Price was the lone competitor but this did not detract from the level of gymnastics she performed. As a junior still she had recently been named in the Isle of Man team for the Northern European Championships.

Georgia scored well on all pieces, including beam where she managed to finish her beam routine following a fall, which subsequently showed that she had fractured a bone in her foot. Her final score was a great 44.55.

Keely Shimmin competed in the senior gold category, this being her first competition since the start of the pandemic. Her class was at the end of a very long day travelling and then competing well after 8pm.

Although bars and beam did not go to plan, Keely came first on vault with an excellent 12.10 and scored over 10 on floor.

The final competitors from the club were in the senior FIG category. Tara Donnelly, Lucy Worthington and Chloe Donnelly took part, with all three girls producing great vaults: Tara third, with Lucy and Chloe joint fourth.

On bars Tara took third place and then the dreaded beam struck again as all three girls had to count falls, although Tara had high difficulty and only one fall to take a great silver medal here.

Lucy unfortunately hurt her toe on beam (four inches wide and solid wood is very unforgiving) and this impacted on her floor score.

Chloe performed her floor routine beautifully to wow the judges and the audience to bring home the award for the best artistry of the day.

Tara rounded the competition off with an excellent silver medal on floor and a silver overall, also achieving a Commonwealth Games consideration score of 46.033.

The club and gymnasts would like to give a big thanks to the coaches Valery Molchanov, Claire Schreuder and Stacey Saltwell, the latter also judging.