Gymnastics: King Edmund strike gold at British Tournament (From Gazette Series)

King Edmund Gym Club win gold medals at British Tournament

9:23am Thursday 5th January 2012 in Yate and Sodbury Sport

SHANIE-REDD Thorne and Danielle Jones produced an outstanding exhibition of acro-gymnastics to win a gold medal at the British Tournament in Stoke-on-Trent, writes Simon Parkinson.

In doing so the King Edmund Gym Club junior women’s pairing all but guaranteed themselves a place in the Great Britain team jetting off to the World Championships in Orlando this April.

The Yate contingent’s junior men’s partnership of Jake Underdown and Christopher Child also did well to clinch gold, despite not quite performing to their usual high standard according to head coach Nikki Thorne.

She maintained: “The boys still have a great chance of getting into the Great Britain team but they do face stiff competition from their counterparts at Deerness Valley Gym Club (County Durham). To be fair everyone was tired after taking part in an event at Ivybridge the week before, but we were absolutely thrilled by the performance of Danielle and Shanie-Redd, who won gold by a considerable margin.”

Not content with that, King Edmund also had silver medallists in the 11-16 men’s four team comprising Ryan Bennett, Marcus Flint, Josh Smith and Robert Bates, a terrific achievement as they were competing at their first British Tournament.

The same applied to 11-16 men’s pairing of Tyler Kelly and Simon Alliston, who took a deserved bronze medal in a tough and competitive group.