The MLC gymnasts will head to the State Netball and Hockey Centre this weekend to compete at the Annual Victorian Championships. The competition is held over four days and commences on Friday June 11th until Monday June 14th. The competition will crown Victorian Champions in the National and International Stream divisions and be a good preparation for those gymnasts preparing for the Australian Championships to be held in Perth early next Month.

29 MLC competitive gymnasts will be competing over the weekend, 18 of whom have been selected to represent Victoria. (pending final selections.)

The National Stream gymnasts will be led by MLC's four National level 10 gymnasts who are seasoned competitors ! This will be the a farewell competition for one of our oldest competitors, 22 year old Felicity Jenkin ! Let's hope the level 10 team can repeat last year's win !

The International Stream team will be led by MLC's Pac Rim team members, Georgia Wheeler and Amelia McGrath, along with team-mate Clare O'Donnell. All three gymnasts are members of the National team and will be aiming to show some new skills at the competition this weekend.

For more information you can go to the GV website here.

Amelia in action in Germany at the POYC.

Photo courtesy of Bernhard Schwall.

The following gymnasts are representing MLC at the Victorian Championships this weekend at the State Netball and Hockey Centre:-

NATIONAL STREAM

MLC National Level 10 Team

Alicia Brown ** Sarah Johnstone ** Meagan Silvers ** Felicity Jenkin (last competition !)

MLC National Level L9 Team

Annabelle Diamond **  Tori Curtis **

MLC National Level 8 Team

Olivia Delbridge **  Georgia Holston **  Nicole Quine ** (subject to fitness)   Janey Nestadt **

MLC National Level 7 Team

Victoria Vatsilas **  Christie Donaghey **  Morgan Baum **  Karina Schiller   Caylee Rankin

** The following gymnasts have been selected for National Championships to represent Victoria in Perth early next month.

MLC INTERNATIONAL STREAM TEAM

MLC Junior and Senior International Team

Georgia Wheeler **  Amelia McGrath **  Clare O’Donnell **

International Level 10

Kristina Ostojic

International Level 8

Emma Curry **

International Level 6

Lidia McLean **   Ebony Winder **

International Level 5

Loren Stojcevski, Jasmine Slade, McKenna Linnen, Jade Vella-Wright ,  Amalia Sosa-Haby

International Level 3

Guilia Archer, Kate McDonald

** The following gymnasts have been selected for National Championships to represent Victoria in Perth early next month pending qualification on the weekend.

GOOD LUCK to all gymnasts and coaches this weekend !!!

MLC Gymnast Amelia McGrath was featured in the June 8 edition of the Progress Leader. The article summarises Amelia's fantastic efforts at the Pre Olympic Youth Cup in Germany last month, and details the upcoming Victorian Championships this weekend:

EAST Kew’s Amelia McGrath has built on encouraging form at the recent Pacific Rim Championships in Melbourne with an outstanding showing at an event in Germany last week. McGrath, who won a bronze medal on the floor at the Pacific Rim titles, was part of an Australian team that won the 14-15 age group at the Pre-Olympic Youth Cup in Bergisch-Gladbach. Individually, MLC’s McGrath finished fourth overall.

Click on the image to read the full article.

We did a light session this morning in the competition gym. We organised to train a little earlier to miss the rush and numbers in the gym and this worked well for us. A rest, lunch and then the competition started.

I watched the 12-13 years age competition and this had some great gymnasts competing. The gymnasts from Sweden were very young and small, but had some great skills. Flic Flic double off beam, yurchenko full, releases on bars and 2 doubles in routine on floor. One of the young German gymnast did full in on floor. The two young Russians had great bars and were very strong here. Beam and floor were a little weak. One of the Russians competed yurchenko double twist - but landed on her hands and knees. I saw her do this to her feet in training at the training gym - but did not see one on the podium. Alex Eade competed well and held her own amongst strong company. She placed 5th AA.

The 14-15 age group started warming up at 5.20 pm and we started competition at 6.30pm on bars. The team made a few errors here, but recovered well. Amelia has not been catching her jaeger, trying to improve her technique and today the jaeger was better technically, but not touching the bar !

Beam the team did a fantastic job, all 4 gymnasts hitting one of their best routines. Millie has made some good improvements since pac rim, with her timing of the routine being 1.35 (20 secs better) and her connection of front aerial flic layout very strong. She missed a couple of connections, but had a solid dismount to finish. SV was 5.30 and final score was 14.30 ! 2nd on beam behind Emma Nedov and Angela was third.

Floor was also pretty good. The team once again went 4 for 4 and all the girls looked really solid and presented some great routines. Millie hit a strong double tuck, 2nd & third passes were good, and double pike small hop. She had both turns paid today - with a great triple turn, and SV was 5.20 - final score 13.45. Equal 1st place !

We finished the competition on vault and Georgia was able to put out a new vault - winning this event. Millie and Angela both finished equal 3rd and Emma just behind !

The final results were Georgia Rose Brown 1st AA, Angela Donald 2nd AA, Emma Nedov 3rd AA and Amelia in 4th. The girls did a fantastic job and represented Australia really well. There is a write up on the Gymmedia website already of the competition  here !

This was Amelia's 2nd International competition (1st travelling outside the country) and she finished in the top 3 on 3 events, and 4th All Around. Well Done Millie !

Tomorrow we are catching the train to Cologne in the morning to do some sightseeing before getting back on the plane tomorrow night !

Pictured with Anja Brinker - 2008 Olympian

Today was another sunny day and the girls have done a fantastic job. We had another sleep in this morning and trained again from 9.00-11.00am. We had lunch (hot lunch again) and went for a walk around the soccer stadium and pool area of the complex where we are staying.

The other delegations arrived today, Sweden, Scotland trained this afternoon, alongside the Russians and many of the German athletes who are competing tomorrow.

This afternoon was podium training. It was open for all athletes competing over the weekend, and therefore there were over 60 gymnasts vying for a place on the beam or bars ! This was a great experience for the girls, they needed to keep patience, concentration and keep moving whilst waiting.

The competition hall was set up within 2 hours and looks great. It is a small venue, but the equipment was all pretty good, with great matting. We were able to do a quick warm up and line drills and tried to start a little earlier, but everyone else had the same idea. Misha's Russian came in helpful - liaising with the other coaches and we started on bars. Unfortunately there were another 8-10 gymnasts on bars as well, so it was a small marathon to get through the program. The girls all did 2 touches and then 2-3 routines. Millie did a good job, doing 3 full sets.

Beam was a little crazy, waiting 20 minutes between touches. It meant the girls were kept busy on the floor working whilst waiting and the coaches were working out who was next up. The girls all did a touch and then 2 full sets. It was difficult to get much more done, as we only had an hour left and 2 apparatus still to do. Millie did a timer routine for her first touch and then 2 full routines hit ! Floor was really good. the girls adapted to the different floor well and all did a full floor set on the floor, along with extra tumlbing. Millie hit a really strong routine on floor, with stuck tumbling passes and good dance. We finished up on vault with some extra timers getting used to the board, and then did 3-4 good vaults. By this time we had the gym to ourselves !

Tomorrow we will do a quick session in the morning and get on the apparatus to do a little beam and floor. The team competes on bars first and starts warm up at 5.20 in the afternoon. The first session is made up of 12-13 year olds. This session has 40 competitors and looks really strong. The girls from Sweden vaulted well - all 10-11 year olds vaulting yurchenko full. The two Russians look very strong with strong bars and one doing a double twisting yurchenko on vault. It was hard to see much more. I will do some videoing of this competition as it will be quite interesting.

The 14-15 year old competition has about 15 gymnasts in this division. Many of the gymnasts are from Germany, and we have not seen much of them yet.

It has been interesting watching the younger gymnasts from Uzbekistan and Germany train over the past 2 days. They are very young and have some great talent and qualities. I will be good to see what they can compete on the floor tomorrow and Sunday !

The girls are well prepared and rested so should have a great competition tomorrow !

If you log onto the Gymmedia website they have been putting updates on the website with pics as well as the work order for tomorrow. 

Day two is always a little tougher on the body and concentration levels, but the girls did a great job today. They were all able to finish their program given to them by the coaching staff.

We had a late breakfast and did a 3 hour session this morning and 3 hours this afternoon. Full conditioning and stretching and full floor program in the morning. Amelia was able to adjust really well to the floor and did a full program today. Bars and beam were good - morning session was basic and 1/2 routines and this afternoon was 2-3 full routines. Vault - we did timers and basic vault in the morning - followed by a full vault session this afternoon.

It was 23 degrees today (from 10 degrees yesterday)  and sunny!  The meals have been pretty good. Breakfast was good (apart from the warm milk) and lunch was a cooked meal again. (soup, spaghetti and salad) Dinner was cold cuts and salad again like last night.

We took the girls to recovery in the pool tonight and they have headed off to bed. We have a short morning session tomorrow morning, and then podium training tomorrow in the late afternoon, ready for the competition on Saturday. The team starts competition on bars in the afternoon on Satuday ! Here are some pics of today !

We have arrived safely in Bergisch Gladbachand the girls are all good. (Just a couple of missing bags - so nothing major.) We are about an hour from Dusseldorf and 20 minutes from Colonge. It is a small country town, very green - and wet .... we seem to have brought the rain with us !

We did a light training session today and will be ready for a full two sessions tomorrow once the girls have had a good sleep. The training gym, accomodation and competition hall are all in the same complex, so very easy for us.

Here are some pics to date - I will provide updates as we go through the trip.

Michelle De Higden  

Wow, what a wonderful weekend of competition!!

National Squad 1 had Trial 2 on Saturday 22^nd May and Sunday 23^rd May.  It was a weekend of many great performances from all athletes.

The results were :

Level 10

Alicia Brown – 1^st overall, 3^rd vault, 1^st bars, 3^rd beam, 1^st floor

Meagan Silvers – 3^rd vault, 4^th bars, 1^st beam, 3^rd floor

Sarah Johnstone – 6^th overall, 4^th beam, 4^th floor

Level 9

Tori Curtis – 3^rd overall, 3^rd vault, 2^nd bars, 4^th floor

Belle Diamond – 4^th overall, 1^st vault, 4^th bars, 4^th beam

Level 8

Janey Nestadt – 1^st overall, 1^st vault, 2^nd bars, 5^th beam, 1^st floor

Georgia Holsten – 3^rd overall, 1^st bars, 2^nd beam, 4^th floor

Olivia Delbridge – 4^th overall, 4^th vault, 3^rd beam, 5^th floor

Nicole Quine – ( only competed beam & floor ) 4^th beam, 2^nd floor

Level 7

Victoria Vatsilas – 2^nd overall, 1^st beam, 4^th floor

Morgan Baum – 5^th overall, 1^st bars, 5^th vault

Jazz Donaghey – 6^th overall, 3^rd vault

Celine Chang – 11^th overall, 2^nd bars, 5^th beam

Caylee Rankin – 12^th overall, 2^nd bars

Karina Schiller – 15^th overall, 5^th floor

Congratulations to Caylee and Karina who both improved their ranking by 8 places at Trial 2.  A great effort girls!!!  Good luck for Trans Bass selection at Victorian Championships.

The Victorian State Team was selected for Level 7, 8, 9 and 10.  MLC was well represented across all levels.

Congratulations to the following gymnasts on being selected into the Victorian State teams.  These girls will be competing in Perth at the National Championships in July.

Level 10 – Alicia Brown, Meagan Silvers and Sarah Johnstone.

Level 9 – Belle Diamond and Tori Curtis

Level 8 – Janey Nestadt, Georgia Holsten, Olivia Delbridge and Nicole Quine.

Level 7 – Jazz Donaghey, Morgan Baum, Victoria Vatsilas and Celine Chang (non travelling reserve)

We look forward to Victorian Championships in 3 weeks time. Good luck!

MLC's Amelia McGrath will head off to Germany on Tuesday to represent Australia in the Pre Olympic Youth Cup in Bergisch Gladbach (north west Germany).

Over the past week the four Australian Juniors have been training together and competed in a verification competition at Trial 2 on Saturday. Amelia won floor with a PB score of 14.25 and placed 3rd on beam. She was also able to compete a strong layout yurchenko on vault and an upgraded Bars routine (which she will not compete in Germany).

Amelia was selected onto the Junior team based on her performances at the Pacific Rim trials where she won the overall trial for Juniors, along with beam and floor. We wish Amelia, Emma, Angela and Georgia-Rose good luck for next weekend !