Lancaster 364.8 – 371.8 York
A hair’s breadth of a points-margin: so ended Lancaster Trampolining Society’s unbroken Roses record as York’s 2012 squad soared to victory in Saturday’s Mixed Trampolining contest. In a closely-fought battle between the teams, each of which put forward competitors in the Novice, Intermediate, Intervanced and Elite categories, York emerged the victors with an overall score of 371.8 toLancaster’s 364.8.
Stand-outs from Lancaster included Theo Markham, who ranked second in the Elite category, and Gemma Sargent, who finished second-place at the Intervanced level. Ultimately, though, York were just too strong a team, taking the top three places at Novice level, first place at Intervanced and first and third places at Elite level.
Each competitor performed two routines – a set and a voluntary routine, each of ten moves – and was awarded a mark out ten according to the aesthetic form of each move.
The combined totals for each competitor were placed in rank order for both teams, with the top eight scores from each university combined to arrive at that team’s final score. Judges were selected from those qualified to do so out of both teams of competitors.
Lancaster’s competitors were as follows:
Novice: Paul Todd, Geoffrey Pogson and Cara Hadley.
Intermediate: Emma Dootson, Emma Forrest, Naomi Obawole, Alice Clark, Lizzi Spence, Fiona Salisbury and Kat Halliday.
Intervanced: Gemma Sargent.
Elite: Joe Pauline, Theo Markham and Will Fellows.
Members of Lancaster’s Exec admitted that the Society was suffering due to lower numbers of participants, as students have become less able to commit to training hours. A further complication was the arrival of brand-new trampolines a mere week before the Roses competition, meaning the squad had not been able to familiarise themselves with the new equipment before the day of the contest.
York were thrilled with their victory on away-turf, describing their win as “awesome” and looking forward to celebrating their win that evening over a few drinks.
Lancaster captain, Emma Dootson, said that despite their overall loss, it was a very narrow margin and she was very proud of her team.
“Some of our team-members has performed the best routines of their entire lives today, and I’m really proud of them. They should all be really proud of themselves, too.”
Describing this year’s York team as the strongest she had ever encountered, Dootson spoke of her team’s determination to get back to practising and “get in some serious training this year.”
The Lancaster squad had already seenYork performing well at other trampolining competitions this year, and admit thatYork have definitely upped their game since last year.
