Artistic | New Scottish National Champions crowned at Ravenscraig
Cameron Lynn and Shannon Archer have been crowned the men’s and women’s artistic gymnastics senior all-around champions at this weekend’s Scottish National Artistic Gymnastics Championships at Ravenscraig Regional Sports Facility, Motherwell.
With a new venue came a new competition format from what we have previously seen when at Bell’s, Perth. Our women’s artistic competitions: aspire, junior, senior and disability categories took over day one of the competition.
Shannon Archer (South Essex) came into this championships, following her announcement of retirement, knowing it would be the last. Her full twisting Yurchenko on vault scored 13.367, the highest of the senior women’s vaults in this competition. Aiming to have a clean competition and to protect the injury which took her out of the championships last year, she opted not to perform a second vault taking her out of contention for a medal on this apparatus. Her performances on floor and bars secured her the gold medals and ultimately finish her career with the national senior all-around title.
The disability gymnasts competed in two splits, category I (learning disabilities) and category II (physical/para-gymnasts) with junior and senior age groups in both. Monica Fisher retained her titles across all four pieces to take the all-around title for category II. City of Glasgow training partner Emma Thomson closed the days competition on beam and received the category I title. Winning gold also on bars, beam and floor at Ravenscraig, showing why she was successful on the World stage at the Special Olympics last summer.
Claiming the title of national champion in the all-around competitions across the other categories in women’s artistic were:
Aspire – Ellie Gray | City of Glasgow
Women’s Junior – Brooke Evans | Dynamic
Women’s Disability Category I Junior – Sophie Barnet | West Lothian
Women’s Disability Category II Junior – Iona Timmons | City of Glasgow
Sunday had our attention turn to the men’s competitions where we saw Cameron Lynn (West Lothian) come out on top on five out of six pieces, floor, pommel horse, rings, parallel bars and high bar. The judges additionally awarded him with the Dave Scollon Artistry Award for his exceptional performances throughout the competition. Performing a handspring into a double front somersault vault excelled Euan McLellan, also from West Lothian, to the top of the podium and take home gold on this apparatus.
Following the Disability Artistic British Championships where he has qualified on five pieces for the Masters at British Championships this March, Craig McGarrity (City of Glasgow) came to trial and perfect upgrades made in the past year. Going from three pieces last championships to all-around six, he took a clean sweep of titles on offer in the Disability Senior Men’s Category I competition.
In the all-around competitions across the other categories, the following gymnasts won gold medals:
Men’s Under 12 – Ramsay Milloy | West Lothian
Men’s Under 14 – Lucas Duguid | Hamilton
Men’s Under 16 – Caiden-Jay Malone | Hamilton
Men’s Under 18 – Luca Robinson | City of Newcastle
Men’s Disability Category I Junior – Connor Deafley | City of Glasgow
Men’s Disability Category II Junior – Harley Davis | City of Glasgow
The team competitions in each discipline had the following gymnasts and this club take the gold medals and respective cup:
Women’s – City of Glasgow | Boden-Rose Agnew, Crystelle Lake, Eilidh Gorrell, Ellie Gray, Jaya Smith & Katie Mo
Men’s – West Lothian (A) | Cameron Lynn, Euan McLellan, Gregor Happs, Josh Pettigrew & Kyle Millar
Congratulations to all the gymnasts and clubs that competed at this event across the weekend. Full results from the competition are available from gymdata.co.uk.
Photography credits @Ewan Bootman