Jersey gymnast leaps into Team GB

Tuesday 24 November 2015

A young Jersey gymnast has made history by making it into the Great Britain squad.

Bryony Ludlow, who's just 10 years-old, tumbled her way to 4th in Great Britain.

It's great news for Bryony and De Mond Gymnastics Academy where she's been training since she was just five years old.

Her coach Tory De Mond said: “As her coach, I’m tremendously proud of her, the programmes we have put in place are working, we’ve got the results, we’re at the top in Great Britain.

"She trains about 18 hours a week, it’s increased as she’s got older but since the day she walked in the gym we knew we’d got a talent here and we needed to nurture it and invest in it.”

The Academy, which is due to move into a new state-of-the-art gymnastics facility at the site of the old Butterfly Farm in St Mary in January, trained Charlotte Pollard - the first ever gymnast to represent the Island at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow last year, aged just 15.

And it's not just Bryony who has raised the bar off-Island this year.  11 year-old Elisha Stott is ranked 11th in her age group, having missed out on the GB team by just 0.05 points but she is still the 4th best on bars in her age group in Great Britain.

Tory said: "Elisha's made history in her own right, she’s the first gymnast in Jersey to compete and pass level 2. Nobody has ever gone down the elite path. This time next year she’ll have another opportunity to place in the top 10."

Emily-May Gorman who has only just turned eight is this year's Hampshire County Champion and the South Region of England champion and 16-year old Bonita Shurmer wiped the floor at this summer's Nat West Island Games and aims to represent Jersey in the Commonwealth Games in 2018.

Bryony is off to the UK early next year to train with the team in the hope of being selected for a number of friendlies being staged all over Europe.