Birmingham 2022 | Women’s Artistic Day One

Team Scotland’s women’s artistic gymnastics team has completed their first competition event at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Following two subdivisions of team competition and individual qualification during the morning sessions, the gymnasts representing Scotland competed in the third subdivision alongside the teams from India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.

Impressive Commonwealth Games debut performances coupled with the experience and confidence of Team Scotland veteran gymnasts helped the team to a sixth place finish with Shannon Archer and Cara Kennedy securing a spot in tomorrow’s individual all-around final as well both getting the chance to repeat their quest for apparatus gold from 2018 in the vault final. Shannon also secures a space in the uneven bars final after a technical and well executed routine.

Ahead of Scoltand’s competition, the ones to beat were South Africa’s Napier, Daries, Rookskrantz, Rankoe and Koti who ended the round with 147.750 and the top two placings in the individual competition.

Scotland started their campaign for medal victory on vault with the two debutant gymnasts leading the team in this first apparatus. The youngest of the team Eilidh Gorrell was the first to vault with a powerful run up and a nice piked double Yurchenko. She takes a small hop on landing but delivers a lovely start to the competition with a score of 11.700. Emily is up next and performs a very nice full twisting Yurchenko – wrapping tight into her twists for 12.85.

Cara is next to compete her vault with a one and a half twisting vault and a difficulty score of 4.2. She takes a step and a hop on landing but secures a score of 13.35.  Shannon starts her competition with a confident vault with a double twisting Yurchenko – she lands very well in a great start in her pursuit for qualification for apparatus finals scoring 13.90.

Her second vault – a full twisting Tsukahara is equally as impressive with a slightly lower landing than her first but securing a near centre landing for 13.100 and an average of 13.5 – putting her into the top place on this apparatus for the day at this point. On this piece of apparatus, Eilidh, Cara and Shannon post their highest scores in this code of points cycle which is a huge achievement for the first rotation at such a major competition.

Emily Bremner was first up on uneven bars in the second rotation, starting off and swinging well throughout. She performs a fantastic Jaeger somersault and dismounts with a double somersault landing with a small hop to score 11.55. Eilidh takes a fall in warm up, but by the start of her routine the nerves are shaken off to start strong and she competes well to end with a full twisting somersault for 10.75. Shannon shows her strength and uses her stature to her advantage, with fantastic pirouettes and a Jaeger somersault. She builds to a full twisting double somersault dismount and the judges give her 12.25. Finally Cara has a routine with nice transitions between the bars, and a double tuck somersault, taking a step forward on landing for 10.7 to finish the rotation.  

The following two rotations offer Scotland a chance to boost their score and set the mark for the day’s final teams. By this stage – the Scottish gymnasts with a team score of 74.65 were already ahead of teams including South Africa who had comfortably positioned themselves at the top of the rankings during their subdivision.

Team Scotland then moved to the balance beam, where Eilidh was once again the first to compete for Scotland. She completes a confident and elegant beam routine, rounded off with a fantastic full twisting double somersault dismount and a score of 11.35. There were a few unfortunate falls for the other gymnasts, but they didn’t dampen spirits in the team. Shannon comes off after her split leg leap to mount, but carries on with some fantastic linked moves and a two and a half twisting somersault for 11.95. Emily scores 11.5 with a great twisting dismount, and looks very happy with her performance. Cara ends the rotation with a unique routine and some thrilling elements which impress the crowd and the judges for 12.25.

Team Scotland’s floor routines bring a sensational end to the subdivision with a mix of balletic poise and dynamic tumbling. Eilidh was first up for the team’s final piece, shining brightly as she started her routine and immediately powering into a double piked somersault and twisting well through her other tumble passes. She ends the routine and her competition with 11.70. Emily puts in a personal best performance on floor, scoring 12.05 – with a powerful two and a half twisting somersault mid routine.

Shannon brings the energy to her routine, with some of the best landings of the subdivision, ending with a triple twisting somersault and 12.40. Cara can decide the fate of Team Scotland with her final performance. She starts with an impressive double layout, followed by a punch front to a one and half twisting somersault and ending with a double tuck and a 12.25 to add to the team’s final total.

The day of women’s team competition concluded with Scotland beating their Gold Coast 2018 score by 3.55 and ending the day on 146.50 and sixth place overall.

England held a convincing lead in the final subdivision to take Commonwealth title with a combined score of 161.00, Australia took home the silver medal position with their score of 158.00 and Canada behind them with their 152.700 giving them the bronze.

South Africa finished in fourth (147.750) ahead of Team Wales (147.050) and Scotland were just behind with 146.50.

Team captain, Cara Kennedy said: "I think we got off to a really good start on vault and then carried that momentum all the way through the competition. I think we were all a bit nervous about vault as our first piece, a couple of us have quite difficult vaults and when each person delivered, it was great! I think it’s incredible we were able to beat previous scores – given a few weeks ago we didn’t even have a team, I think what we’ve done in the past month to work together and bond as a team has juts paid off on the competition floor.“

Shannon Archer added: "I think all of us are really happy and very excited, it was a very good day for every single one of us, I feel like we all really smashed it on everything! It would be amazing to make some finals and, we’re excited to find out if we have.”

Eilidh Gorrell said: "It was amazing to have the support, although it wasn’t a home games in Scotland, it really did feel like having a home crowd, they were absolutely amazing. Every time we finished a rotation there was always cheers, and lots of scotland flags flying everywhere.“

Tomorrow, Frank Baines and Pavel Karnejenko will be back to compete in the men’s individual all-around, followed by Shannon and Cara returning to competition in the afternoon. On 1 August, we’ll see all four finalists in the men’s floor, rings and women’s vault and uneven bars finals. The following day Frank will be joined by Hamish Carter in the horizontal bar final.

> Missed any of the competition? You can catch up on BBC iPlayer
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