Waterford’s Kilbarry Gymnastics Academy (KGA) took an incredible 20 medals back to the Déise last weekend (25th and 26th March) as their 17-strong Competition Squad travelled to Dublin to compete at the annual All Ireland National Level 1-5 championships with gymnasts from all over Ireland.
This Gymnastics Ireland flagship event saw gymnasts of five disciplines compete across all apparatus in the World class facilities of the Sport Ireland National Indoor Arena.
The KGA Gymnastics who range in age from 7 to 16 all work very hard training between 6 and 12 hours a week as they perfect their skill across four apparatus – bar, beam, floor and vault.
The KGA Squad were joined by over 1600 gymnasts and watched by 3900 spectators from every corner of Ireland in what was an unforgettable experience for these talented young Waterford athletes who won 8 Gold, 8 Silver and 4 bronze medals with every All Around gymnast finishing with in the top 6 in the country
On Saturday 25th Sophie Dunne and Charley Caulfield took joint Silver in the Level 5 (Under 16) National All Around Individual Competition with Charley also taking second place and the Silver Medal in the Bars Final and Sophie also came third winning Bronze Medals in both the Beam and Floor.
Sinéad Keane also finished an excellent 4th in the All Around Individual competition and Kate Foley competed strongly at Level 5 on Floor and Beam (Over 16).
Level 4 (Under 11) saw Evelyne de Paor and Aishling McKenna competing, both finishing strongly in 5th and 6th place respectively in the Individual All Around Competition. Evelyne also finished in first place taking the Gold Medal and National title in the Vault and Aishling finishing third in the Vault taking the Bronze medal.
At Level 3 (Over 13) Freya Healy had a superb competition becoming the All Around Level 3 (Over 13) National Champion winning the Gold Medal and also taking first place, National Titles and Gold Medals in Floor and Beam and taking Second Place and the Silver Medal in Bars.
At Level 2 (Under 8) Madison Hamilton took second place winning the Silver Medal in the Individual All Around and at Level 2 (Under 9) Sophia Power took first place winning the Gold Medal and the National Individual All Around Title and at Level 2 (Under 12) Anna Pierce came third in the Individual All Around Competition winning the Bronze Medal.
At Level 1 (Over 11) Shona Pidgeon won the National Individual All Around Title taking the Gold Medal with teammate Gabby Jones coming second to win the Silver Medal and Eve O’Donnell finishing strongly to come fourth in the Individual Competition.
At Level 1 (Under 9) Ava Pierce came second winning the Silver Medal in the Individual All Around Competition.
Day 2 of the Competition (Sunday 26th March) saw KGA’s youngest Competitive Gymnasts compete at Level One (Under 8) with Chloe Phelan taking the Gold Medal and winning the National All Around Individual Title and her teammate Nicole Downey taking second place to win the Silver Medal also in the Individual All Around Competition.
Club director and head coach Maddie Croke was delighted with the excellent results; “It was a fantastic weekend for KGA, all our gymnasts were amazing, and we are so proud of every one of them. This weekend’s results are one the best we have ever had. It is great to see KGA represent Waterford so strongly on the National Stage as the City’s only Women’s Artistic Competitive Club. We have a twenty-strong Competitive Squad who train very hard and it is great to see them compete with clubs from all over Ireland. KGA has a strong performance pathway for gymnasts to be able to progress towards and thrive in competitive gymnastics.”
A five-strong coaching and judging team from KGA travelled up to Dublin with the gymnasts; Maddie Croke, Racheal Egan, Lindsey Sheehan, Mia Flynn and Lily-Mei Flynn.
Photos from the event
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