Alicia is a two-time Australian National Levels representative and is vying for her fourth Victorian team selection this weekend at the Victorian selection trials for Australian Championships to be held in Perth in July. Alicia was 3rd All Around at the Australian Championships last year at National Level 10 and represented Australia against New Zealand in September. In 2008 she won the National Level 9 All Around title ! Alicia finished Year 12 in 2009 and is now combining her training  and studying at tertiary level, along with some coaching on the side ! She is a great role model for the junior gymnasts in the gym at MLC !

1. When and where did you first start gymnastics?

 I started gymnastics when I was 4 years old at Banyule YMCA.

 2. Who else is in your family and do they do any sports?

 Mum, Dad and my sister – Steph. Steph does cheerleading.

 3. What is the skill you would most like to learn in the future?

 Jaeger on double bars.

 4. What do you love most about gymnastics?

 I love that there are so many opportunities to learn and develop new skills and I love the many life skills you get out if it.

 5. Are you currently studying at the moment? If so, what?

 Yes, I finished Year 12 last year and am currently doing Nursing at ACU.

 6. What new skills are you currently working on?

 Yurchenko full twist on Vault

Jaeger on Bars

Back handspring, two feet flic dismount on Beam

Flic sault also on Beam

 7. What has been your best competition/results to date?

 Australian National Championships in 2008 where I placed 1^st AA.

 8. Who do you look up to most and why?

 My coaches and my teammates. They always inspire me to try my hardest in everything I do.

 9. What do you want to do after you finish gym?

 I would love to become a nurse.

 10. What skills has gym taught you that you can use in the future?

 So many things! Mainly, it has taught me patience and self confidence which will definitely assist me later on in life.

Alicia is coached by Jackie Caldwell, Bret Nicholas and Lorraine Heeps

Interview conducted by Alex Byers-Armstrong.

Alicia with her team mates and coaches at Victorian Championships 2009.

MLC's winning National Level 10 team !

This weekend will see the second trial for the Victorian team selections for International Stream. The following gymnasts will be competing for MLC:-

IDP 6

Ebony Winder and Lidia McLean

IDP 8

Emma Curry

Junior International

Clare O'Donnell and Amelia McGrath*

Senior International

Georgia Wheeler

The competition will be held in two sessions to allow for optimal judging for the athletes, with IDP 6&8 being held first at 7.30 am and IDP 10 to Senior commencing at 10.45.

* This is also a verification for the four Australian Juniors travelling to Germany next Tuesday to compete in the Olympic Hopes Cup.

Good Luck to all those gymnasts competing !! 

The National Stream level 7 -10 gymnasts had their first Trial to gain selection for the Victorian State Team on Saturday 8^th May 2010.   The girls looked fantastic and we were once again so pleased of how professionally they conducted themselves and especially on their outstanding results.

Results were:

 Level 10

Alicia Brown - 1st overall, 1st floor, 1st beam, 2nd bars, 5th vault

Meagan Silvers - 2nd overall, 2nd floor, 3rd, bars, 4th beam & vault

Sarah Johnstone - 8th overall, 4th floor, 6th vault

Level 9

Tori Curtis - 3rd overall, 1st floor, 2nd beam, 6th bars & vault

Annabelle Diamond - 6th overall, 1st vault, 4th floor and bars

Level 8

Janey Nestadt - 1st overall, 1st vault & beam, 2nd floor, 4th bars

Georgia Holsten - 4th overall, 2nd beam, 4th bars, 5th vault & floor ( floor she had a fall aswell )

Olivia Delbridge - ( only competed beam & floor, due to recovering wrist injury ) 1st floor, 2nd beam

Level 7

Jazz Donaghey - 2nd overall, 2nd vault, 6th beam & floor

Morgan Baum - 6th overall, 3rd bars, 5th vault

Victoria Vatsilas - 9th overall, 2nd beam, 6th bars

Celine Chang - 10 th overall,4th beam, 9th bars, 10th beam

Caylee Rankin - 20th overall, 6th bars

Karina Schiller - 23rd overall, 15^th Floor

Congratulations to all athletes for some wonderful results.   A special congratulations, goes to Morgan Baum and Olivia Delbridge.  This was their first competition for the year and they both did an excellent job competing with both grace and maturity.

We wish you the best of luck for Trial 2 in 2 weeks time.

Jackie Caldwell - National Stream Head Coach

International Stream Trial 1 was held today at the VWHPC. This is the first trial for those gymnasts working for selection for National Championships in Perth in July.

MLC had only three gymnasts competing this weekend, with Georgia and Amelia resting after last week, and Chloe and Clare not quite ready to compete full sets yet. We will be ready to compete in 2 weeks time at Trial 2.

INTERNATIONAL 6

Lidia McLean competed very well this weekend, despite being sick during the week. Lidia competed a beautiful floor routine, solid vault and some great handstands on bars. Unfortunately she fell on a swing 1/2 turn, but had fantastic lines and shapes on bars. She competed a strong beam routine with two small but costly errors. She placed 2nd All Around and on Floor and 3rd on Bars, 4th on Vault and Beam.

Ebony Winder won warm up today ! She completed many skills today in warm up that will enable her to become competitive this year. She was unable to put all of this into her final performances today -but has some valuable knowledge to take away from today. She placed 2nd on Beam with a great beam routine, 6th on Vault and 7th on Floor. Keep up the great training Ebony !

INTERNATIONAL LEVEL 8

Emma Curry competed some fantastic upgrades today. She competed a tuck Tsuk today for the 1st time and stood up well. She competed full difficulty on bars this week, and will shortly connect the blind change to the reverse giants ! Beam she competed back handspring series for the first time and a roundoff layout dismount, but unfortunately made some errors on simple skills that were costly for her. On floor Emma stuck with her basic floor routine and showed some improvements in the dance elements from past competitions.... Emma finished the day 3rd all around, placing 1st on Floor and 2nd on Vault and 4th on Bars. Well done Emma..... keep working to gain consistency in training...!!

Georgia and Amelia are back in the gym training, already focussing on the next 5 weeks we have to prepare for Victorian Championships and Nationals !

Amelia is off to Germany in two weeks and Georgia is busy upgrading her routines for Vics and Nationals..... along with team-mates Clare O'Donnell and Chloe Turko.

Two final news articles published this week are listed below !

Leader Sports Star nomination here.....

Leader News wrap up of the team event here.....

Georgia Wheeler was awarded the Coaches Award at the VIS Annual Awards Dinner last week. Unfortunately she was unable to attend due to Pacific Rim Championships. As a first year VIS Silver scholarship holder, Georgia is proud to receive this award from Mikhael Barabach !

Well Done  Georgia !

Events finals were held yesterday with the top 8 gymnasts from Day 1 of the event qualifying for finals. Georgia qualified for Vault finals and was reserve for Bars finals. Amelia qualified for Beam and Floor finals, and reserve for Vault.

Georgia started the afternoon on Vault as the 4th competitor. She was able to put her best 2 vaults on the floor for the week and we were really happy with this. It shows that she is now ready to upgrade her difficulty at her next competition.....so we will  be working hard in the gym to do this. Victorian Championships are 6 weeks away and Nationals 10 weeks. With Nationals being Commonwealth Games trials Georgia will be ready to show some new skills and consolidate her skills from the past few months !!! Georgia's efforts in training and competition over the past 2 weeks have shown to everyone her ability to perform under pressure. This will enable her to be a valuable contributor to the National team in the coming months, leading up to Commonwealth Games and World Championships.

Amelia started the competition on Beam and was able to hit another routine under pressure. She placed 5th on this event and knows she can do ever better once she is able to hit her best routine in finals. Her floor was fantastic ! She hit every tumbling pass solid and probably did her best floor routine ever, hitting her double horizontal turn and triple turn. The judges initially did not pay the value for her turns, but once they were recognised this placed her in equal third with the Chinese gymnast ! With the departure for Pre Olympic Youth Cup in Germany a little over 3 weeks away, Amelia will work on her new upgrades and corrections from this event.

Overall the two MLC gymnasts finished the Pacific Rim competition gaining invaluable experience training and competing alongside the best in the world ! The confidence and knowledge they will gain will assist them enormously in the future ! To come away from one of the most prestigious International events with a team bronze and individual bronze medal is a fantastic effort ! Well done Georgia and Millie

We are now looking forward to Victorian Championships and Nationals and bringing more of our gymnasts onto the competition floor !!!

Below are some pics from the event taken by Michelle.

Here is the link from The Age last Saturday - 'Australians fired up to work harder', May 2, 2010, Linda Pearce

Well, the day finally arrived and Georgia and Amelia were ready take on USA's best in the team event last night, along with the other Australian team members. Both gymnasts were very focused during the week, had trained good routine and skill numbers at Camp, competed two verifications during this time and were very positive about their programs they were competing.  We did a light session in the morning at the VWHPC prior to the evening session.  

Georgia  did a fantastic job throughout the past week. She had been unable to complete the verification on day 2 at camp due to a landing on her bars dismount. Despite this, Georgia maintained strong focus throughout the three podium sessions once we arrived at Melbourne and competed exceptionally well. She has demonstrated fantastic mental strength and control this last week ! Well done Georgia !

The team started on Floor and Georgia did her arabian double front well (with a hop out of the floor), a strong double tuck 2nd pass, her front Layout full, Layout 3rd and dismounted with a double pike. The landing had great height, but lacked control on landing and Georgia bounced out of the floor incurring a 0.5 deduction. Amelia hit a very solid floor; mounting with double tuck (small hop), back 1 1/2 to front 1/2, front full to stag and a great double pike dismount. Amelia has qualified 3rd for the floor final on Sunday and confident she can do an even better performance on floor. Amelia's floor is here.

Amelia started the team on Vault (after spare) and competed her best layout yurchenko ever ! (She is 1st reserve for Vault finals - well done Millie and Jeb !) Georgia competed a solid layout yurchenko and backed this up with a great handspring front pike to place her into Vault finals for Sunday. This was a great effort from Georgia !

The team all hit bars, with Georgia hitting a really good routine, great shap and huge tkatchev, strong overshoot to clear shoot and arabian double pike dismount !

The team finished the competition on beam, often a hard task after 5 rounds of competition. Georgia had a little too much power on her front tuck and bounced off the beam.... (one of her most solid skills and an error she has not made on beam for a very long time !) The rest of the routine was very clean, and she dismounted with her new beam dismount of flic flic double pike (a few large steps on landing). This is an easy error to correct and one that Georgia will learn from. Here is Georgia's beam routine.

Amelia competed a very solid routine; change leg gainer layout connected for the 1st time in competition, as well as her front aerial flic layout. She connected her turn series and had all her leap elements paid with her highest start score of 5.80. Here is Amelia's Beam routine from the team event. This has qualified her into Beam finals on Sunday ! 

The Australian team finished 3rd behind an amazing USA team, followed by China. This is Georgia and Amelia's 1st International medal ! Well done to all the Australian team !!!!

Hopefully you were all able to see Alex Byers-Armstrong assisting with the medal ceremony, if not - here are some pics !   Thanks Alex, you looked fantastic !    

Thanks also to all the MLC gymnasts, parents and supporters who came along to support Georgia and Amelia and the rest of the Aussie team !

Come along and support the girls on Sunday for the apparatus finals !

Millie and Georgia signing autographs......