An excellent international gymnastics tournament takes place in Linz, Austria at the beginning of December, and a very close gymnastics ‘nut’ had the good fortune to be a guest of the organisers there for the second time. Last year the British team won against stiff competition, and this year they were just beaten into second place by an impressive Japanese team.

Apparently all four of them got off to a magnificent start on the pommel horse (always the toughest apparatus I think) and followed that with impressive vaulting and (later) floor exercise.

The only major mishaps were Giarrni Regini-Moran hitting the parallel bar with his leg, and the youngest, Joshua Nathan, falling from the high bar.

The ages ranged from 13 – 17 and three of them were taking part in their first ever international competition (Japan/Slovakia/Czech/Switzerland/Austria/Australia/Sweden/GB/Hungary/Germany/Croatia). So this is a VERY impressive result.

The youngest, Joe Cemlyn-Jones, won his age group (left), whilst Callum Sims and Giarrni Regini-Moran were placed honorably in theirs. Overall an excellent result for British Gymnastics – made us feel proud to be British over here too.

Heartiest congratulations to all four of them, and special commendation for Joe. Obviously the one to watch.

Pictures taken from www.future-cup.at and courtesy Pavl Rycl and Stefan Mauermann.

Meanwhile, for the tekkies out there, I’m still having trouble getting pictures to display the size I want since WORDPRESS changed their upload screen a few days ago. They’re all coming out smaller in the post (but I’ve cracked how to get them to enlarge again as they should when you click on them). Any ideas, please comment or e-mail to gymacrobat@gmail.com with suggestions.

I leave you today with the customary advertisments!