By Jodie Symonds
IT’S the time of the year for gymnasts to ‘stick it’.
The competition season has begun, and it is the most opportunistic time for gymnasts to display the skills they’ve been working on all year around.
Head coach at Glitz Gymnastics Academy in Lilydale, Becky Lissenburg, said competing gymnasts trained about 10 hours a week, and were split into a combination of strength, conditioning and skills and drills.
She said the competition season would hold between 10-12 competitions, but the gymnasts were only entered into four to six due to time, financial and travel reasons.
“The level fours and fives started in mid-July, and the level sixes and sevens started at the end of August,” Ms Lissenburg said.
The Women’s Artistic Gymnastics competitors perform on vault, uneven bars, beam and floor, and the Men’s Artistic Gymnastics competitors perform on vault, high bar, pommel horse, floor and rings.
She said so far the Glitz gymnastics team had done well but consistency was a weakness.
“They have done fairly well, though nerves seem to get in the way quite often,” Ms Lissenburg said.
“They have competed against a lot of very strong teams in some comps, so there has been some disappointment at the end of the day – but they have done some great routines and got some scores they should be proud of.”
Gymnasts in levels between three and six perform the same skills, with a starting score of 10 and every mistake incurs a deduction.
“This is why gym coaches are constantly nagging for toes to be pointed [and] legs straight,” Ms Lissenburg said.
She said in levels seven to 10, the gymnasts could choose to do any of the skills in a certain group of skills, and started with an execution score of 10, from which the deductions were then taken.
For more information about the gymnastics season, visit http://vic.gymnastics.org.au/
