An increasingly popular event on the gymnastics calendar, the British Championships is expected to treat us to a great preview of what to expect from the British team this year.
Starting on the 8th of April, this competition will feature a junior and senior competition. The junior all-around are on Friday, the senior competition on Saturday and event finals on the Sunday.
The senior all-around compatition is expected to be a heated battle between Amy Tinkler, Claudia Fragapane and Ellie Downie, all three of whom have prestigious all-around medals printed on their resumes.
Amy Tinkler, the 2015 British all-around champion, has had a good 2016 so far, finishing 4th at the AT&T American Cup and 2nd at the English championships. She also led her home team, South Durham, to a bronze medal finish at the 2016 British team championships. We can expect big skills on beam and floor from Amy, as well as great skill sets on vault and bars, with maybe a few upgrades. But we shall wait and see.
Claudia Fragapane, the 2014 Commonwealth Games all-around champion, is yet to win a British all-around title. Claudia kick-started her Olympic year at the Glasgow world cup, where she finished third, and then went on to win the English championships where she scored a personal best score of 57.600 with a fall on beam. Having already shown huge upgrades on bars and beam this year, it is expected that Claudia will show upgrades on floor at this competition. That is something we cannot miss!
Ellie Downie is yet to make her 2016 debut. She pulled out of the Stuttgart world cup which many thought was due to injury. But we cannot rule out this gymnast who has been on fire over the last few years. Downie, who won a bronze in the all around last year at Euros, is known to be strong on all four events. Her most successful event has probably been vault. It is known that Ellie has been planning upgrades on vault especially for the Olympic year. But will we get to see these upgrades at next week’s British championships.?
Other big names expected to compete include Becky Downie, Ruby Harrold, Rebecca Tunney and Kelly Simm.
The biggest absence from this competition will perhaps be Catherine Lyons, who enjoyed a very successful junior career from winning floor at the 2014 junior Europeans and winning 3 gold’s and 2 silvers at last year’s junior British championships.
Catherine told The Couch Gymnast that she has recently been given the all clear from a doctor after suffering what appeared to be a full ligament tear in her foot. She has also been receiving treatment for a ganglion cyst in her wrist. She is expected to still travel to Liverpool to support her team mates and she says she hopes to be back competing as soon as possible, most probably at the final Olympic trials in June.
It is unknown whether or not Tyesha Mattis, Gabby Jupp and Teal Grindle will compete; all of them have been recovering from injuries.
BGTV will be live streaming all three days of competition and the BBC will be covering Sunday’s competition, a huge boost for the event!
More information on coverage and start-lists to follow.
Article: Craig Tilley
Photo Cover: Myriam Cawston