Regional crown for Jeffery and Beviss (From Bridport and Lyme Regis News)

Regional crown for Jeffery and Beviss

10:00am Wednesday 6th March 2013 in Sport

NEWLY-FORMED partnership Jamie Jeffery, 16, and Matthew Beviss, 10, maintained Honiton Gym Club’s recent record for excellent men’s pair partnerships by taking the Grade Three South West title at the regional preliminaries in Taunton.

The pair will now go on to represent the south west region at the national finals in Stoke-on-Trent in May.

Jeffery, a pupil at Woodroffe School in Lyme Regis, and Beviss, who attends Honiton Primary School, were competing in their first serious competition together after the former joined the club just over six months ago.

James Reddy, high performance coach at Honiton Gym Club, said: “Matt and Jamie have come a long way in a very short space of time.

“Jamie’s a natural talent, who seems to improve hugely every session he’s in the gym. “He’s transformed his skills over the past few months and is now a competitive gymnast that can perform skills precisely and with good technique.

“He and Matt only learnt to somersault as a partnership two months ago and they now have four in one routine – both forwards and backwards.

“They’ll now be working hard to perfect their moves and learn a new routine so that they can make the most of their opportunity at the national finals in May.”

In addition to the duo’s gold, gymnasts from Honiton also produced some other excellent results at the competition, particularly in the Grade Two girls’ trio event, where – apart from the gold – gymnasts from the club took the majority of the top spots.

Emma Saunders, Charlotte Drawer and Lyme’s Megan Quick put in a fine performance to take the silver, and Ellie England, Sharna Curley and Emily Lee claimed bronze. They were closely followed by Jasmine Waterfield, Francesca Cade and Keira Bonetta in fifth (just one tenth of a mark away from the medals); George Greenyer, Somer Horsfield and Phoebe Simeons in ninth; and Saffron Herbert, Emily Bristol and Faith Symonds in 10th.

Reddy added: “This was an extremely competitive category. Less than one mark separated the top 10, which meant that minor errors made a huge difference to the final results.”

Another very competitive category was the Grade Two girls’ pairs event, with 22 entrants. Honiton’s Lauren Davey and Lois Norman took fifth with a score of 25.35 (a score that would have won gold in many of the day’s other disciplines), closely followed by Quick and Isla Cloke in sixth who scored 25.20. In the Grade Two Out of Age girls’ pair event, Kaci Brooks and Becky Fullard finished in fifth position.

This weekend the club’s younger gymnasts will compete at their regional ‘grades’ preliminaries in Sherborne.

For more information about Honiton Gymnastics Club, visit honitongymclub.org or contact hnayler@hotmail.com