The Cooroy Gymnastics Club has once again proven that you can still win through hard work and determination at this year’s Australian Gymnastics Championships on the Gold Coast.
The small community club has produced five individual medals including three National Championships plus team silver at the event.
Cooroy had three athletes selected for the level 9 squad: Dean Chandler, Lyam Chandler and Finlay Jones with Cooroy senior mens coach Greg Smyth named team coach.
Finlay and Dean have two previous National Championships under their belt but it was Lyam’s first selection at this level. Greg has proved to be the steadying hand bringing 40 years of experience at Nationals as a competitor, coach and judge.
The first day of competition is the team event with scores also added to the final all around awards.
The Queensland team struggled to post their usual scores due to the added pressure of high level competition and the absence of events during 2020.
Only one gymnast managed a clean routine without a fall on pommel and failure to post good scores on this apparatus cost the team a gold medal.
Queensland finished with silver just 1.5 behind a deserving New South Wales.
Going into day two Finlay was the highest ranked Queenslander running third in the all around event just behind the two competitors from NSW.
With an eye still on the all around event it was the day to focus on the six individual apparatus.
Fin was not able to get back all of the points from the two NSW competitors but did manage to hold on for a third place all around.
The Queensland team was able to win four out of the six apparatus finals.
Finlay fought hard to win 3 National Championships with gold on pommel, rings and parallel bars. Brothers Dean and Lyam finished 3rd and 4th on vault with Dean winning his first individual medal at the Australian Championships.
These wins are even more amazing as the club does not have a full vault area or competition rings canopy making preparations for the event challenging.
