Olympic Gymnastics Team Final

CAN IT REALLY GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS...YOU’D BETTER BELIEVE IT!!!

After a 100 year wait, the British Men’s Gymnastics Team have just written a new chapter in the history book of our sport by claiming Bronze in the Men’s team final; for a fleeting moment it was actually Silver, until a successful appeal from the Japanese team that saw them elevated into second position.

In front of a very noisy and patriotic home crowd, the GB team of Louis Smith, Kristian Thomas, Daniel Purvis, Max Whitlock and Sam Oldham put in an outstanding performance to secure the bronze medal. This was narrowly ahead of Ukraine who themselves have improved enormously in this Olympic cycle with a very talented young team.

The usual Gymnastics powerhouses of the USA, Russia, Germany and France finished 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th respectively but just made too many major errors in the first couple of rotations and were always chasing the top four teams. Let’s not underestimate these great nations though as I am sure they will bounce back even stronger.

The outstanding performances of the day had to go to Louis Smith who yet again performed his extremely difficult routine flawlessly to score 15.966, a score that could really secure him an individual Gold next Sunday. Also outstanding was Daniel Purvis for executing his difficult Floor routine in the final rotation and under immense pressure to score 15.533. But I really do have to take my hat off yet again to Kristian Thomas who at this moment in time is in the form of his life and put in outstanding performances on Rings 14.433, Vault 16.550 (which was the highest score of the competition), High Bar 15.200 and, under immense pressure on Floor, Kris needed to nail the final routine of the day to secure a medal and he did just that with a huge score of 15.433 to claim the Bronze medal.

British Gymnastics has now won a medal at every major championships in this Olympic cycle since Beijing and our history book now has so many new chapters – OUR SPORT REALLY IS HEALTHY and YES, IT CAN STILL GET BETTER :-)
 
C'MON GB

Cheers, Dan

What a day for British Gymnastics at the Olympic Qualifications!

Men’s Artistic Gymnastics Qualifications

After months of preparation it was time for the GB men to show the world how far we have advanced as a gymnastics nation since Louis Smith’s historic bronze medal in Beijing.

GB were up in the first session and put in an awesome display in front of a noisy home crowd to finish leading the team qualifications and ahead of the reigning Olympic team champions China. The whole team performed exceptionally but would still have to wait for another two sessions before knowing their fate, not only as a team but individually as well, especially with some strong teams still to come.

By the end of the final session it was confirmed that the GB men didn't just perform well, but they blew away the competition! With it went some of the gymnastics powerhouses including: China, Japan and Germany to finish third. Individually they also performed very well - Kristian Thomas and Daniel Purvis qualified for the All Around final, Louis Smith and Max Whitlock for the Pommel final, and Kristian Thomas for the Vault final.

My stand out performances of the day had to be Louis Smith and Kristian Thomas. Louis because he performed an exceptionally difficult Pommel routine to score 15.8 and top the qualifications for the Pommel final, all this while under immense pressure and expectation from the British public. Kristian Thomas proved yet again just how good and consistent an All Around gymnast he is - not only did he qualify in 5^th for the All Around final but he has also became the first British gymnast to beat the exceptionally talented Kohei Uchimura in an All Around competition. On top of this Kris also qualified in 5^th for the Vault final and narrowly missed out on a High Bar final finishing 9^th and a Floor final finishing 11^th.

Now bring on the finals – c’mon GB!

Cheers, Dan

Olympic test event preparation

Find out how many days off work Daniel will get this Christmas, as he prepares for the Olympic Qualifier in January.