Day One of the 2015 World Gymnastics
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23/10/15: Day one of the 2015 World Gymnastics Championships saw Great Britain’s women’s team of Claudia Fragapane, Rebecca Downie, Ellie Downie, Kelly Simm, Amy Tinkler and Ruby Harrold place second after 5 of 12 subdivisions of qualification.This placing puts them in a strong position to finish in the top eight teams and so make the women’s team final on Tuesday evening and crucially qualify a full team to the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. The qualification competition continues tomorrow with the likes of defending World champions the USA taking the stage, therefore the British team will now have to sit and wait to see what finals they have made and if they have booked Britain’s ticket to Rio. The team put in a fantastic performance in front of a packed home crowed at the Hydro Arena in Glasgow. Starting off on a less favourable piece of apparatus, the beam, the team held their nerve to wow the crowd and gymnastics world alike with highly difficult and cleanly executed routines to finish with a total score of 227.162. Ruby Harrold “it was a nerve-racking start on beam; we were all really keen to get off to a good start and remain calm that was our big focus. As soon as we warmed up we felt good, the crowd gave us energy and it felt great to make a solid start. I see myself as a team player and that’s my role to help the younger gymnasts and the team as a whole and I’m proud to have done that today. Hopefully we’ll make that top 8, we’ve done a great job and we’ll be watching the scores closely.” Amy Tinkler “That was an amazing experience, I’m really happy mainly of course for the team but also with my own performance in my first ever World Championships. I thought I’d be nervous but the crowd were so supportive and loud it made it amazing fun. We’ve worked very hard the last few weeks fine tuning our routines and I’m really happy with all my performances today, we’ve got a great shot of making the team final and securing our Rio places.” The girls now wait for qualifying to conclude not only to see the team standing but also for individual final places with the top 24 all-around gymnast making Thursdays final and the top 8 gymnasts on individual apparatus making next weekend’s finals, currently GB have several contenders for both. Full results from day one of competition. http://www.fig- gymnastics.com/site/page/view?id=831 The story of the GB competition… The British girls started their competition on the beam, a piece that requires nerves of steel and can always a tough apparatus to begin competition on. Ruby Harrold started the team off with an extremely mature and confident performance that saw her score 13.600. First year senior Amy Tinkler followed up with another steady performance and looked cool and calm under the pressure at her first World Championships to perform cleanly to score 13.633. The younger of the Downie sisters, Ellie up next had to fight hard half way to stay on but she performed very well and scored 13.966. Four-times Commonwealth Games gold medallist, Claudia Fragapane unfortunately had to count a fall on an extremely difficult skill but kept her composure well for 13.233. Becky Downie anchored the team on their first piece and showed her experience to score a strong 14.100. Onto the floor, the girls used the home crowd to their advantage. Ruby Harrold packed her routine full of energy and continued to show her consistency scoring 13.466. Kelly Simm then followed up with some very powerful tumbling and although she landed slightly short on her second pass she finished well for 13.566. Ellie Downie continued to impress on the floor and looked as though she has plenty of power to upgrade in the future too scoring 14.400. Amy Tinkler followed up with an equally impressive routine at just 15 years old she was oozing with confidence to score 14.200. Powerhouse Claudia Fragapane was up last for the team and she did not disappoint the home crowd desperate to see her impressive skills up close, she scored 14.600 which puts her in a good chance of making the floor final. Over on the vault, Kelly Simm got the girls off to a great start scoring 14.433. Ruby Harrold then followed up with another strong vault for 14.666. Things just kept getting better with a 14.866 for Claudia Fragapane and a 14.933 for Amy Tinkler. Ellie Downie then opted for two vaults in an attempt to make the individual final. She scored 15.066 for her first and 14.833 for second to give her an average of 14.949. Onto the final piece of apparatus and GB looked very strong. It was a clean start on bars with Amy Tinkler getting through nicely; she looks really pleased with her performance and scored 13.700. Kelly Simm then put in another solid clean performance on the bars equalling her teammate with 13.700. Unfortunately Ellie Downie struggled early on in her routine counting a fall and then struggled throughout on form but in true style she fought to the very end to score 12.133. Ruby Harrold followed up with an extremely difficult routine and went through with ease to score 14.666, looking to make the bars final next weekend. Former European champion on this apparatus, Becky Downie unfortunately struggled on her first release skill then had to count a fall on the next. She finished strongly with the crowd helping her through for a 13.500. .