Caitlin Owston, Amelia Pamler & Bethany MacDougall competed in the 13-19 Women’s Group, after qualifying for the final in first place, they took the Gold Medal with a score of 25.790. They improved significantly on last year when this same trio took bronze in the British Championships in the 12-18 age group category.
Also competing against the best in the country were Katerina Dubov & Tatiana Dubov, who competed together for the first time in the 12-18 Women’s Pair, eventually finishing fifth after qualifying for the final in bronze position.
“This was an outstanding performance by our young trio and a very much deserved gold medal,” said Katie Lawton, high-performance coach, Deerness Gymnastics Academy.
“It is a great achievement for any gymnast to compete at the British Championships and all of our competitors this year have shown such commitment and put in hours of hard work in training with their coaches to develop to a high enough level to compete at a national championships and I am so pleased that it has paid off for them, and will hopefully inspire come of our younger gymnasts too.”
Deerness Gymnastics Academy in Ushaw Moor is a high-performance centre for British Gymnastics. Earlier this year, Karl Wharton, the club’s founder and volunteer Director was honoured with an MBE in The Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to gymnastics.
The club which also has its former gymnast Matt Baker as its patron and has become one of Britain’s top gymnastics clubs over the past twenty-five years, with over 100 international gymnasts with more than eighty World and European medallists, including fifteen World and European Champions in its roll of honour. It is not only one of the most successful clubs in Great Britain but it is also recognised on the International scene as one of the top clubs in the world.