First Timers Gain Respect at Heathrow
It's competition season again and this time around Crossway Gym entered more gymnasts than ever into the Spring Championships at Heathrow Gym.
First time competitors Sofia Berkita, Temi Abodunrin, Yasmin Zerouali-Amari, Melissa Dos Reis Alves & Rebecca McQuiston all experienced the taste of true competition over the weekend of 31/03 & 01/04/12.
Although no silverware was won on this occassion, much respect was earned and everyone at the gym is sure that it will not be long before they are all bringing home a haul of medals.
All gymnasts gained great scores;
Sophia scored 10.25 for Vault, 10.10 on the A. Bars, 10.35 on the Beam and 11.15 on the Floor.
Temi scored 10.25 for Vault, 8.50 on the A. Bars, 7.40 on the Beam and 10.40 for her Floor.
Yasmin scored 9.75 on Vault, 9.25 on A. Bars, 7.10 for her Beam routine and a respectable 10.25 for her Floor.
Melissa's scores were as follows; Vault 9.65, A. Bars 8.40, Beam 3.45 and Floor 10.05.
Rebbecca scored 10.60 on Vault, 10.00 on the A. Bars, 3.90 on the Beam and her Floor scored 10.01.
Crossway Gym is very proud of all their acheivements!
Meanwhile, the Gym's Elite Girls took part in the Spring Championships on Sunday 1st April 2012 and medals were won! Claudene Alberts, Amy Campbell and Alexzandra Barnes (pictured above) did very well in the respective categories. Alexzandra came 6th in the Level 4 Age 10 category but even better, with a whopping score of 11.10, she won the gold medal for her excellent performance on the A. Bars.
Crossway Gym had two gymnasts in the Level 4 Age 13 category where Amy Campbell won the Bronze medal along with a Gold medal for her excellent performance on the A. Bars with a score of 10.75. Claudene Alberts came second and brought home a silver medal with fantastic scores on all four pieces. With her score of 43.650, Claudene was just 0.350 pts behind the winner.
Once again, this proves that Crossway Gym is a great place for children of all ages to learn a new sport and be successful.
Medal Success at Heathrow
Crossway Gym gymnasts were successful at the recent competitions at Heathrow. Alexandra Barnes won a gold medal while Claudene Alberts won a bronze in her category. Meanwhile, Amy Campbell was presented with a fourth place ribbon. More details when we have them. Well done to everyone who took part.
The Weighting Game
THE absence of Commonwealth Games medallist Zoe Smith was barely felt at the Balfour Beatty London Youth Games as Sean Archer filled the void to help Greenwich to a weightlifting silver at Crystal Palace.
London 2012 hopeful Smith, who is now based at the British high performance
centre in Leeds, was hoping to represent her home borough, only for an injury
to rule her out.
Archer is a gymnast by trade and is based at Crossways, just as Smith was before turning her attentions to weightlifting, but she was convinced to broaden her horizons just days prior to the competition.
And Archer followed in Smith’s footsteps admirably to secure Greenwich the silver medal, but revealed while it will be the last anyone sees of her in weightlifting circles, gymnastics will remain her number one sport.
“Zoe Smith was supposed to be doing the weightlifting but she dropped out due to an injury and at the last minute I had to step in and I only had two sessions before the competition,” said Archer.
“But I’ve really enjoyed it and I think I will pursue weightlifting as well.
My mum wants me to stay in gymnastics though so I think I’ll do that too.”
Sean was joined in the
competition by fellow Crossway Gymnast Barry Sadler (pictured below).
Barry said that it was an "amazing opportunity to show what I could do
and represent Greenwich Borough at the same time."
Meanwhile, Archer was not the only Greenwich competitor celebrating at the London Youth Games, when all 33 London boroughs descended to take part in 18 sports across two days, with Fearn Cook grabbing 50m freestyle bronze in the pool.
The 16-year-old Eltham Foundation School pupil touched home in 26.61 seconds with her exploits helping Greenwich into fifth place in the overall female swimming competition.
“I was really pleased with that swim and it feels great to get a medal,” said Cook.
“This is a great competition to take part in and it’s great to represent your borough and so I’m really pleased with how things have gone.”
Those stand-out performances, coupled with a third-place finish in the female athletics competition, largely thanks to Renee Ross-Gordon’s 100m gold, saw Greenwich finish the overall London Youth Games competition in 11th place.
Balfour Beatty is committed to helping raise the aspirations, motivation and attainment levels of young people in the communities in which it operates and has committed over £2m to help develop the London Youth Games until 2013.
Crossway Girls Win Silver at the London Youth Games 2011
Three gymnasts from Crossway Gym won silver medals while competing for Team Greenwich at the Balfour BeattyLondon Youth Games back in June 2011. Team Greenwich finished runners up to Team Bexley, beating Team Bromley into third place. This represented Grenwich Borough's first podium finish at the games, which also saw individual medals for Natasha Baptiste and Ellis O'Reilly who won three gold medals and two golds and one silver medal respectively.
Team Greenwich is coached by Crossway Gym's very own head coach Tony Nell. Tony said "We feel great! The London Youth Games not only gives out medals, it gives the kids a great experience at competition level against other boroughs."
The three gymnasts from Crossway Gym were reigning club champion Sean Archer, Amy Campbell and Claudene Alberts. All three have represented Team Greenwich in the past and were overjoyed at winning their medals.
The Balfour Beatty London Youth Games is Europe's largets annual youth sporting event. Funded by Sport England National Lottery, the event enjoyed the most successful year in it's 34-year history in 2010 with over 64,000 participants aged 7 to 18 from 33 London Borough teams taking part in 60 competitions over 30 sports.
England and Mancheter Utd defender Rio ferdinand competed in the London Youth Games Gymnastics events in his younger years.
For more information on the London Youth Games check out their official website.