The LOGOC have announced that tickets are still available for the London 2012 Test Event next week. Tickets for Visa International Gymnastics are on sale now, priced from £10 for full price tickets and from £5 for young people and seniors. Tickets are available for men’s and women’s Artistic Gymnastics sessions, as well as for Trampoline.

Meanwhile British Gymnastics announced the MAG team who will contend for a place at the Olympics in August. The team is lead by experienced seniors Louis Smith, Daniel Keatings and Daniel Purvis as well as Kristian Thomas, Ruslan Panteyleymonov and Max Whitlock, with Sam Hunter as the reserve.

As we know, the British WAG team have already secured their slot for the Games but Jocelyn Hunt and new senior Rebecca Tunney will be given the chance to compete next week.

Great Britain’s Daniel Keatings wrote a column for The Telegraph following his uncharacteristically bad form at the World Gymnastics Championships in Tokyo. From reading the column, it  is clear to see that Dan is clearly gutted at the result, as Great Britain’s main objective for the 2011 WCh’s was to qualify for the London 2012 Games.

The Worlds had been something that I was really looking forward to as it was my first global tournament since recovering from a major knee injury. I put in a huge amount of preparation, which went really well, but when it came to actually performing I let myself down.

I felt in such good shape going into the Worlds with a number of good results in competitions to draw upon so I was expecting to do well.

As Dan says, it’s not all bad, at least the British Boys will have the opportunity to use the equipment that will be used a the actual Games in the summer.

A real bonus about competing in the test event is that we get to have another dry-run at the Olympic venue, using its apparatus and getting a feel for what to expect in London before any of the other big teams do. That’s a big advantage as the equipment is different everywhere you go. We’ll be able to go there and test it out and get used to it which is going to be great.

Our objectives are clear: we need to get the team qualified for the Olympics at the test event. Then once our place at the Games is booked we need to work on how we operate as a team as that’s a crucial aspect of succeeding at a Games. If we meet these objectives then we’ll never perform as badly as we did at the World Championships again

Hopefully the British men have had some rest since the WCh’s and have gone back into the gym, not dwelling what has happened but have started fighting for the future.

Yes the Women’s AA Final might mostly be about should Viktoria Komova have won over Jordyn Wieber but for other nations, it’s how well their gymnasts did, even if they didn’t win a medal.

Great Britain’s Hannah Whelan impressed today, she placed 9th in the Women’s All Around Final, showing consistent form all around.  She began on beam with a nice clean routine which started her off in 8th place out of 24 gymnasts. Moving to floor Hannah put in a beautiful and confident routine, looking like she was really enjoying herself out there.  On bars she scored 13.258, her lowest score throughout the competition, however she scored an excellent 14.400 for her Yurchenko 1.5. Overall Whelan improve on her 16th place last year to earn 9th place with 56.124.

Hannah’s form and confidence has much improved since I last saw her at the Glasgow Grand Prix back in April. In my opinion, it’s only up from here for Hannah!

Read more: BBC 

Image via Getty Images

The British MAG team competed this morning in the first subdivision scoring 348.742. It was a tough competition with some uncharacteristic slip ups from this strong team who should make the top 8 and automatically qualify through to the 2012 Olympics.  One definite positive to come from the competition was that Louis Smith will make the Pommel final, scoring 15.600 for is routine. Currently World Champion Krisztian Berki is in first place with 15.866. Dan Purvis currently lies in 6th place in the All Around rankings.

At 1:30pm British time they will find out their fate, will they have qualified in the top 8 (with China, Russia, Australia, Canada and Korea still to perform) or will they have to try again at the Test Event in January? It looks like the latter right now with the team standings currently as follows:

1. JPN 364.191 2. USA 361.583 3. GER 354.132 4. ROU 350.900 5. UKR 350.434 6. FRA 349.818 7. GBR 348.742

06.00: The British boys made a great start to the competition on rings with powerhouse Ruslan Panteleymonov leading the way with a 14.333 supported by Dan Purvis and Kristian Thomas both with 14.100. From rings to vault and again the British boys all completed clean routines, Dan Purvis proving his all-around credentials early on with a 15.133.

Next up parallel bar and errors started to appear, Dan Keatings with an uncharacteristic slip, but overall the British boys remained composed and at the half way mark were looking on track for a good score.

It was on the high bar that the good work began to unfold, with two falls and difficulties for all except Dan Purvis, the British boys were shaken. Needing to regroup on floor they produced solid work all round, Purvis again the top scorer but all gymnasts going clean and showing fantastic maturity and focus after the high bar.

The last piece was the pommel. Kristian Thomas struggled first up but Sam Oldham in his first senior Worlds took the pressure setting up the way for the big guns – Dan Purvis scored a clean 14.566 to give him an all-around total of 89.132, a brilliant display and clear route through to the all-around final.

Dan Keatings suffered a rare slip whilst traveling between the pommel, the difficulty of his routine showing in his 14.066 score despite this. Last up was Louis Smith, having encouraged his teammates around every piece it was now his turn to contribute and he did so in style, a superb clean 15.600 giving the boys the boost they needed and surely putting Louis into the pommel final.

Via British Gymnastics.

Image via FIG

Despite having some pretty rough training session before their qualification competition and not having the best competition possible, the British team of Beth Tweddle, Danusia Francis, Hannah Whelan, Imogen Cairns, Jennifer Pinches and Becky Downie earned their country a spot at the London 2012 Olympics. The girls qualified in 8th place, luckily making the cut.

Teams who have secured a place to London 2012

1. United States
2. Russia
3. China
4. Romania
5. Japan
6. Australia
7. Germany
8. Great Britain

The remaining teams who qualified 9th – 16th will compete at the London 202 Test event in January, find out who those teams are here. The All Around explains the process for qualification to the Olympics.

Making the top 8 was always Great Britain’s aim of the World Championships, making any Event finals or All Around Final was a bonus.  Hannah Whelan will be the only GB gymnast taking part in the AA finals. Beth Tweddle didn’t have a good bars set so will not be defending her World Title but did qualify for the Floor final, a title that she last won in 2009 at the World Championships in London. View an interview with Beth below:

Tomorrow will be the turn of the British Men. The team know that they have their work cut out for them but we should expect some event finalist, Louis Smith on Pommel and perhaps another one or two for Daniel Purvis and Daniel Keatings. They begin their qualification competition at 3:15am British time with Spain in the same subdivision.

Images via Getty Images

Sounds like the British boys are getting on great and impressing in Podium Training. Check out videos of Podium Training so far below courtesy of Gymnastike.

Pommel
Dan Purvis

Dan Keatings

Louis Smith

Sam Oldham

Floor
Dan Purvis

Sam Oldham

Watch more video of World Gymnastics Championships Tokyo 2011 on gymnastike.org

Tonight Sky Sports will air a special report on Great Britain’s Olympic hopeful Louis Smith. Sky Sports spent a week following Smith around, including spending time with him at a training camp in Lilleshall as well as chatting to other top GB gymnasts including Beth Tweddle.

Sky Sports also get an exclusive look at the routine Smith hopes will win him gold in London next year.  The report will air at 7.30pm GMT tonight. Fingers crossed that someone will be kind enough to put it up on YouTube!

Read more from Sky Sports

Kristian Thomas won the title as British High Bar Master last week at the British Championships. Check out his routine below:

Is this kid good enough to challenge Kohei Uchimura?

Today Kristian was named in the team to represent Great Britain at Worlds in Tokyo.

Full Twist’s “Meet The Gymnast” series has been on a bit of a break since our extended vacation in August / September due to Hurricane Irene.  So far our series have met British Champion Hannah Whelan, the comeback kid Imogen Cairns and new senior Rebecca Tunney.

The fourth in a series of posts looking into Great Britain’s potential Worlds 2011 and London 2012 team. This weeks edition features the newly returned from injury Niamh Rippin. 

Niamh Rippin, born 30th March 1994 from Southwell in Notts. Niamh, a member of the British National Team since 2007, trains in Notts Gymnastics Academy with fellow Team GB member Becky Downie and is coached by Claire Starkey. As a British Junior Niamh showed promises of an excellent gymnast but so far her road hasn’t been easy.

The Junior Years

2007 was the year that Niamh became silver Espoir Champion behind Danusia Francis. It was also the year that she was part of the Notts team who won the British Team Championships, beating City of Liverpool and Huntingdon to the title.

One of Rippin’s first international competitions since joining the National Squad as a Junior in 2007, was a friendly competition against France in Blackpool in early 2008. The Junior British Team beat the French juniors (featuring Youna Dufournet and Marine Brevet) 219.650 to 216.050. In the All Around competition Niamh placed 4th out of the 15 gymnasts competing and in the Individual Apparatus she placed 6th on vault, 4th on floor and 1st on beam.

In 2008, she placed third in the All Around competition behind Nicole Hibbert and Danusia Francis and  in the Junior British Championships. Jenni Pinches was fourth in this competition. Individually she placed 5th on vault, 1st on bars and floor and 4th on beam.

At the British Team Championships in 2008, Niamh’s “Notts A” team placed second behind “City of Liverpool A” and ahead of third place “Heathrow A”. Niamh only competed on 3 apparatus so ranked in 52nd place but came 4th on Vault. The 2008 Notts A team consisted of Becky Downie, Laura Jones, Jordan Lipton and Louise Mercer. The winning City of Liverpool A team was made up of Beth Tweddle, Hannah Whelan, Aisling Williams, Melanie Roberts and Jenni Pinches.

2010

At the 2010 French International where the likes of Beth Tweddle, He Kexin, Wu Liufang, Aliya Mustafina and Jessica Lopez competed, Niamh qualified in 6th place on vault and 8th on floor. Whilst only placing 8th in the vault final, she placed 4th in the floor final, just behind Beth Tweddle (1st), Ramilya Musina (2nd) and Marine Brevet (3rd).

The 2010 British Championships in Guilford was the last time that we saw Niamh prior to this years Championships. Here, she placed 6th in the AA competition behind the 2010 Champion Hannah Whelan. In the Apparatus Finals she placed 2nd on floor and 7th on bars.

At the 2010 British Team Championships, Rippin was part of the “Notts A” team (Becky Downie, Ruby Straw, Billie Mackenzie) who placed second behind “Heathrow A”. The Heathrow A team featured Laura Mitchell, Nicole Hibbbert, Becky Wing, Loriah James and Charlotte Lindsley.  Niamh placed first on floor, 3rd on bars and 4th on vault. Huntingdon placed 3rd.

2010 European Championships

Niamh was part of the silver medal winning team at the 2010 European Championships in Birmingham. The team consisted of Rippin, Beth Tweddle, Becky Downie, Nicole Hibbert and Jocelyn Hunt. They came second scoring 168.275 behind the Russian team of Mustafina, Nabieva, Kurbatova, Myzdrikov and Semenova (169.700) and ahead of Romania (Porgras, Chelaru, Racea and Haidu) who scored 164.975. Rippin competed on two events in the team final, beam and floor. In the event finals, Niamh placed 6th on floor, tied with France’ Marine Brevet.  She calls the European Championships one of the highlights of her career to date.

Injury strikes

After the 2010 British Championships, Niamh suffered with a back injury and so began to reduce her training, to give her back a break. After some time, it was discovered that the back pain was being cause by a stress fracture. A recovery and rehabilitation of three months was given. Niamh describes this as the worst three months of her life. In time, she began to get better and resumed training until she broke her hand. At times, Niamh felt like it was the end of her career but both her coach Claire and the also injured Becky Downie kept her going. Unfortunately these injuries ruled her out of both the 2010 Commonwealth Games and the 2010 World Championships in Rotterdam. In July this year Niamh said that she was back to where she was before she became injured and was delighted.

2011

This years British Championships saw Rippin return to competition. Here she won bronze on vault and silver on floor. She also placed 7th in the All Around competition.

Notts didn’t do so well at this years British Teams but Niamh placed first on vault, just .05 ahead of the second place tie of Hannah Whelan and Laura Edwards. Not bad for her first competition since injury.

At the WAG Friendly against Spain, Niamh competed in her first International Competition since her silver medal at Europeans in 2010.  She debuted a new, very difficult floor routine which she competed without any major errors. She performed a 1.5 twisting Yurchenko (which she nailed) and achieved 14.250 for it. In the apparatus finals she took the bronze medal on vault. During this competition, she had costly mistakes on both bars and beam but bars has been tough for Niamh since breaking her hand.

Most recently Niamh competed at the Romanian Nationals where the British girls were guests.

 Present

Niamh has spent the last week or so training at Lilleshall for GB team selection for the World Championships in Tokyo and potential GB qualification for the Olympic Games. We should know on Friday 23rd September if Niamh has been selected to represent her country in Tokyo. Of course, this information will be available on Full Twist.

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The British Men will take on the Spanish Men in Basildon, UK this weekend in a warm up friendly competition ahead of the World Championships. A strong 10 man British squad will compete featuring Daniel Purvis, Max Whitlock and Reiss Beckford.

 More information via British Gymnastics
Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images AsiaPac

Two friendly warm up competitions will be held on September 22nd in France. The French women will take on their German counterparts while the French Men will take on their British rivals.

WAG

France 

• Rose-Eliandre Bellemare
• Mira Boumejmajen
• Navy Patent
• Youna Dufournet
• Clara Della Vedova
• Aurélie Malausséna
• Sophia Serseri

Germany 

• Kim Bui
• Anja Rheinbay
• Lisa Katharina
• Hill Katja Roll 
• Nadine Jarosch
• Elisabeth Seitz
• Pia Tolle

MAG

France

• Samir Ait Said
• Pierre-Yves Beny
• Thomas Bouhail
• Cucherat Yann
• Gaël Da Silva
• Hamilton Sabot
• Tommason Cyril
• Arnaud Willig
• Axel Augis

Great Britain

• Daniel Keatings
• Sat Holdman
• Ruslan Penteleymonov
• Daniel Purvis
• Kristian Thomas
• Max Whitlock

British Gymnastics has posted a report on the ROM V GBR V POR Friendly which took place this weekend at Lilleshall. Unfortunately the full results aren’t posted, BG has been very busy with the MAG British Championships this weekend so hopefully they will post them soon. The Romanian Gymnastics Federation might also post them.

Great Britain won the team competition with 229.45 whilst Romania scored 227.90. In the All Around competition, Hannah Whelan  was first (57.95) followed by Amelia Racea (57.30) and Ana Porgras (57.05). Today, Sunday was the apparatus finals competition with Raluca Haidu winning on vault for Romania (14.725) and Ana Porgras winning on beam with 15.520. Uneven Bars World Champion Beth Tweddle came first on bars with 15.325 and first on floor with 14.950.

According to other reports online, Becky Downie finished 3rd on bars, which is fantastic! Raluca Haidu was 2nd on bars with Diana Bulimar 2nd on floor and 3rd on beam. Diana Chelaru was also 3rd on floor.  Apparently Sandra Izbasa didn’t have a good competition, falling on beam, didn’t compete on floor, had difficulty with her dismount on bars and only competed an FTY on vault.

Read the full report on British Gymnastics and check out the videos posted here.

Louis Smith has joined the logistics company UPS as its fourth ambassador for the London 2012 Olympic Games as the company passed another logistics milestone by handling its 250,000th item for next years big event. Louis joins Ben Ainslie, Denise Lewis and Steve Rider as ambassadors for UPS, a Tier One London 2012 sponsor.

The London 2012 Games will be the largest single peacetime logistical undertaking in the world and the quarter million items that have arrived so far include:

• Delivery and assembly of the BMX starting gate, delivered into the BMX arena on the Olympic Park

• Basketball hoops, also delivered into the Olympic Park

• Hockey training pitches

• Beach volleyball umpire’s chair for Horseguard’s Parade

• 2012 RIB sailing boats for the sailing test events

Earlier in the year Smith featured in a new Adidas campaign and also joined the BMW London 2012 Performance Team. He has also featured on BBC’s Olympic Dreams series. It seems both Louis and fellow 2008 Olympian Beth Tweddle are in the two British gymnasts who are most in demand. Tweddle most recently had a Virgin Pendolino Train named after her. We can see why, after chatting to both Beth and Louis at the Glasgow Grand Prix earlier this year, we found that the two are very down to earth and likeable characters, not just for their gymnastics abilities but for their great personalities. Come on, who wouldn’t want a piece of Louis!?!

Louis has been named in the nominative MAG team list for the 2011 World Championships along with Daniel Purvis, Daniel Keatings, Sam Oldham, Kristian Thomas and Ruslan  Panteleymonov. Max Whitlock has been named reserve for the moment.

More information can be found about Louis and UPS on Inside The Games.  Visit Louis’ official website here.

…Selection for the World Championships teams will be confirmed week beginning September 26th, the Sports Journalist Association announced in it’s post detailing the upcoming media open day at Lilleshall.

Ahead of the 2011 world championships in Tokyo (October 7-16), media are invited to attend a training session for both the men’s and women’s artistic gymnastics squads on Wednesday September 14 at Lilleshall National Sports Centre, Shropshire, TF10 9NB.

This Media Day will be the only chance to photograph, interview and film the gymnasts and performance director. Those attending will include:

British Gymnastics Olympic Performance Director Tim Jones
Three- time World champion Beth Tweddle MBE (Liverpool)
2008 Olympic pommel horse bronze medallist Louis Smith (Huntingdon)
2009 World All-around silver medallist, Daniel Keatings (Huntingdon)
2010 World floor bronze medallist Daniel Purvis (Southport)
2009 World all-around 6th placed gymnast Kristian Thomas (Wolverhampton)
2010 Youth Olympic Games high bar champion Sam Oldham (Nottingham)
2010 Commonwealth Games vault and floor champion Imogen Cairns (Bristol)
2011 British champion Hannah Whelan (Liverpool), along with a further 16 elite gymnasts who form the British senior squads.

Those in the media wishing to attend can find information here.

So, who do you expect to see on Great Britain’s MAG and WAG teams?

Is there room for Hannah Whelan, Jenni Pinches, Danusia Francis, Niamh Rippin or Imogen Cairns? 

What about the men? Is Daniel Purvis a sure thing for the team?

Leave a comment below outlining your team!

The third in a series of posts looking into Great Britain’s potential Worlds 2011 and London 2012 team. This weeks edition features the newbie Rebecca Tunney who will be eligible to compete in the London 2012 Olympics.

History

Rebecca was born on 26th October 1996. At aged five she gave up ballet to focus on gymnastics, a difficult choice for someone of such a young age but she enjoyed gymnastics more. She is currently coached by Claire Duffy at Liverpool Gymnastics Club, training 25 hours a week. Rebecca didn’t start out Liverpool GC and now travels from her home in Manchester to train. A lot of pressure for a young girl but because of her sheer talent, she is allowed to take half days from school two or three times a week for training.

2011

To date, Tunney has had an extremely successful 2011. Whilst Liverpool club mates Tweddle and Whelan were winning their titles at the Senior British Championships, she won the Junior British title. There she told International Gymnast Magazine:

“I wasn’t expecting the win at all so I’m really pleased,”

“I’ve competed on podiums before and always find it such great experience and it was great having the support of my club here in its hometown. All the younger gymnasts from my club were able to watch and were cheering me on it was great.”

Watch Rebecca in style at this years British Championships:

Hopefully we can see more of Rebecca when the British women travel to Romania this week to compete at the Romanian Nationals in Onesti.

Rebecca and London 2012

Rebecca has high hopes of competing for Great Britain at the 2012 Olympic Games. Since she has been named to the performance squad, the likelihood that Liverpool Gymnastics Club will have four members in the Great Britain women’s team heading for the 2012 Olympics has come a step nearer. Tunney may join her club mates Beth Tweddle, Jenni Pinches and Hannah Whelan in London to represent their country.

Achievements to date:

2006

• National Finals Level 3 North West Team
• Cheshire and Merseyside – 2^nd AA

2007

• Level 2 Compulsories – Passed
• Level 2 Voluntaries – 12^th AA
• Alpha Factor – 17^th AA

2008

• North West Regional Championships – 3^rd AA
• Welsh Open -2^nd AA
• Espoir British – 11^th AA, 3^rd Bars

2009

• British Schools Championships Seniors 14^th Team 6^th
• British Espoir Vault Champion & 3^rd Floor
• English Espoir Championships 1^st AA Bars & Floor 1^st Beam 4^th
• Named as National Potential Squad Member 2009/2010

2010

• Junior British Championships – 2nd AA
• Named as National Potential Squad Member 2010/2011
• North West Open Champion and Floor and Vault Champion
• UK School Games Champion and Bar Champion
• English Junior Championships – 2nd AA
• North West Junior Champion
• GB vs Japan vs Italy vs America vs Russia – Team 4th
• Olympic Hopefuls – 1st AA
• Isle Of Man Invitational – 1st AA Floor, Vault and Bars 1st, Beam 3rd

2011

• English Junior Championships – 1st AA Bars, Vault and Floor 1st, Beam 3rd
• British Schools – 6th AA Vault 2nd
• Team Member of the City of Liverpool Team Champions
• Manchester Open Junior Level – 1st AA Floor and Bars 1st, Vault 2nd, Beam 3rd
• GB V Romania Friendly – 7th AA