Honiton gymnasts bring back British Championships medals

Two partnerships from Honiton Gymnastics Club have brought home silver and bronze medals from last weekend’s British Acrobatic Gymnastics Championships.

15-year-olds Ashley Wallis and Buster Tutcher took silver medals in the 12-18 men’s pair event and Charlotte Beviss (12) and Josh Jackson (17) took bronze in the 12-18 mixed pairs event.

The accolades completed an impressive weekend for Honiton Gymnastics Club, which took 11 gymnasts to Stoke on Trent to compete in the biggest national event of the year.

“It’s the biggest troupe of gymnasts we have ever taken to a British Championships,” said James Reddy, high performance coach at Honiton Gymnastics Club, “which shows just how much the club has developed in the past few years.

“Our gymnasts turned in some excellent performances this weekend, demonstrating their strength, agility and artistic skills. Buster and Ashley competed particularly well after drastically increasing the difficulty of their routines in the past few months, and we’re just waiting to hear if they’ve done enough to make the trials for the world championships. Charlotte and Josh also improved their performance hugely, scoring more than two full marks higher than in their previous competition.

Other partnerships competing at the British Championships included Sean Kingston and Megan Cross (fourth in 12-18 mixed pairs), Adam Fullick and Megan Jones (fifth in 12-18 mixed pairs), and Corina Challis, Faith Symons and Sharna Curley (20th in 11-16 girls trio).

“The standard of acrobatic gymnastics in Great Britain is extremely high,” added James, “so it’s wonderful for our gymnasts to represent Honiton in such a prestigious and high quality event.”

The competing gymnasts were all members of the squad acro group at Honiton Gymnastics Club. The club has grown so much in the past couple of years that – for the first time in its 30-year history – it has had to introduce waiting lists to its recreational and gym crazy kids classes.

For more information visit www.honitongymclub.org or contact Helen Reddy on hnayler@hotmail.com.