Coming off from the success Great Britain had experienced at the European Championships this year, England hope to receive even more awards at the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Scotland, as the majority of the team from Euros will be now competing for England.
Despite going off to compete for their respective country, this English team is going to be no different from the British team we’ve come to know and love. The team has depth and is set to make a big impact at these Games.
England will be competing against their main rivals on the world scene for the team gold, Canada and Australia. Four years ago in Delhi, England sent their “B Team” to go up against a strong Australian team and a reasonably challenging Canadian team. Of course, the gold went to Australia and deservingly so, may I add.
But what is it going to take for this English team to come out on top of their two main challengers?
England will have three gymnasts who can vault a solid double twisting Yurchenko, those being Becky Downie, Kelly Simm and Claudia Fragapane. Now we would expect Canada to have a strong lineup on this event, especially with the presence of Ellie Black who is an Olympic finalist on his event. Australia has a good line up for this event but maybe not strong enough to keep up with England, who would be competing vault at least 8 tenths higher than their Australian rivals.
Moving on to bars, England has two specialists on the team: Ruby Harrold who is a world finalist on bars, along with Becky Downie who is also a world finalist, and also happens to be the newly crowned European Champion on the event. Both Ruby and Becky have different versions of their bar routines so it is unknown whether they will lower their D score, keep their current D score or upgrade their D score. Either way, these two make up a strong lineup on bars for the English team.
Beam is an event the British team has been improving on, so this should be a good event too, depending on how successful the routines go. Of course England has a gymnast who has a credit for her beam work, that being Hannah Whelan who won a bronze medal on this event at the 2012 Europeans. Hannah is capable of posting great scores on beam and is capable of doing great acrobatic series and combinations which if they go to plan, can help raise her D score. Becky Downie is a European finalist on this event in 2014 and is typically a very solid beam worker, and also Ruby Harrold is a European finalist back in 2013
Floor is a great event for this team, with their specialist being Claudia Fragapane who can post scores ranging in the high 14’s with her difficult tumbling. Also, Kelly Simm has a competitive floor routine and is known to have scored in the 14’s as well. England can really pick and choose who their third floor worker will be, between Hannah Whelan, Becky Downie or Ruby Harrold who can all contribute solid scores on this event for the team.
So as a team, I would say England are capable of winning but it really does come down to how they perform on the day.
On an individual basis, it is hard to tell who the coaches will choose to compete all around. I would say the AA could go to Ruby Harrold, Kelly Simm or Claudia Fragapane but on this occasion it is hard to decide as they are all very capable all-arounders.
But in terms of event finals, it is easy to separate who could qualify to which final. Here are my choices:
VT: Kelly Simm and Claudia Fragapane
UB: Becky Downie and Ruby Harrold
BB: Becky Downie and Hannah Whelan
FX: Claudia Fragapane and Kelly Simm
England will be expected to send a big message to the gymnastics community at these games and will certainly bring more success within the British Gymnastics programme.
What are your thoughts on England’s chances? Let us know.
Article by: Craig Tilley