Fantastic year for school's gym team (From Barry And District News)

Fantastic year for school's gym team

THE BARRY Comprehensive Gymnastics team have just finished their successful school year by taking part in the Welsh Gymjamboree gymnastic festival.

They performed three different routines at Merthyr Tydfil in front of an audience of around 800 people from all over Wales and England. The first routine was performed by 11 boys from the school who had earlier this year picked up 12 British Schools' Boys individual and team titles at the British Schools' Floor and Vault championships.

The first routine was a combined floor routine. They then went on to perform two further routines the second being 'Rock Anthems' which is a combination of 'We'll rock you - Queen, Rock DJ - Robbie Williams' and music from Eminem' and the second 'Three Seasons' which combines gymnastic acrobatic dance routines which mimicked Olympic Winter events.

'Summertime by Shaggy' and 'Raining Men', where the trampett was an integral part of the routine. Through all three routines the boys had difficulty hearing the music because of the deafening applause. Team members were Andrew Adamson, Nathan Hollinshead, Tyler Hughes, and Wayne Sherlock (year 7), Robert Chapmen, Ashley Forrester, Rhys Newland, Ryan Shorney, Richard Tinsley and Jay Walters (year 8), Martin Adamson (year 10) and G O'Hanlonreth Davies, Ben and Michael Sewell (year 11).

The boys have also recently performed at the largest gymnastic event in Europe - The Scottish Gymfest Festival. This event has almost 1500 gymnasts performing in front of huge audiences of 1500 people. Barry Comprehensive is the only Welsh team to have ever performed at this event.

They have now been invited back to perform at the opening ceremony and are the first Welsh team to ever have this honour. They were also invited to perform at the preview, which is held in front of the local Edinburgh schools.

Throughout the year the team have performed at National Events at Liverpool, London, Edinburgh and Merthyr Tydfil and have picked up 5 County, 5 Welsh and 12 British titles in team and individual Schools' Floor Vault and Tumble & Vault Championships.

Five of the boys have also qualified to be part of the county team and recently went on to win the Welsh County Title with two other boys being first reserves in their respective age groups.

At the recent presentation evening at Barry Comprehensive the gymnastics team were chosen to be the Sports Team of the Year and were awarded the Army Shield with two of the older members of the team, Ben and Michael Sewell (who have six individual British titles between them) were awarded the individual PE Faculty award.

The team are just one of two all boys teams and one of just five schools that take part in any Festival throughout Great Britain. They have gained massive credit around the country and have received e-mails from teams around the UK congratulating them on their success this year and have even been put on the website of a well established English team.

Next year they will be performing as part of the British display team at the World Gymastrada, which will be taking part in Portugal next July. The team are currently trying to raise funds to attend this event.

If you would like further details, or are able to help the team in any way then please contact the school on 411411 and ask for Emma Thompson.