Craig Jones
Cooroy Gymnastics sent a team of five gymnasts to the Gymnastics Queensland’s 2022 senior states over the weekend.
The state event is over two days where gymnasts compete on the first day for the all around award and qualification to the apparatus finals.
The championships also are the qualification event for the Australian Gymnastics Championships which will be held in five weeks on the Gold Coast.
Cooroy came away with two state championships and 12 medals, including a clean sweep of the podium in the level 10 vault.
Each gymnast did Cooroy proud, coming home with at least one medal.
Placings for day one all-around:
Level 7 Open: Mackenzie Jones 11th.
Level 9 Open: Felix McWilliam 2nd.
Level 10 Open: Finlay Jones 3rd, Dean Chandler 6th, Lyam Chandler 8th.
Placings for day two apparatus finals:
Level 7 Open: Mackenzie Jones 3rd high bar.
Level 9 Open: Felix McWilliam 2nd high bar, 2nd pommel, 3rd floor.
Level 10 Open: Dean Chandler 1st vault, floor 3rd, Lyam Chandler 2nd vault, Finlay Jones 1st parallel bars, 3rd vault 3rd rings.
What makes these boys’ achievements so impressive is that each of them went into this comp with less than ideal preparation because of the many interruptions to their training schedule.
All but one were impacted by Covid and required to isolate – two were still feeling the impact of long-Covid.
Flooding also took out more training time, then there are the life commitments outside of training and competing.
Mac is in year 11 and Felix is in year 12, both are full time students, both work part time – with Mac even attending an outdoor education camp the week of the comp and commuting back into Cooroy to train those nights.
Dean is an apprentice plumber working fulltime. He backs up a day of physical work with another four hours of training five days a week.
Lyam is in his third year of a degree studying fulltime.
Finlay coaches as well as studying fulltime in the second year of his degree. Life outside of 20 hours of training a week is hectic for these boys. Yet somehow, each one balanced their load to arrive at this point.
Cooroy men’s coach Greg Smythe was happy with the results.
He said he was hoping to get to the national event without any interruptions to training. Even though the preparation for states was less than ideal, he was impressed that all level 9 and 10 boys were selected to the Queensland team to compete at nationals next month on the Gold Coast.
