Molly Rewrites History!

Pipers Vale Gymnast Molly Taylor has rewritten gymnastics history by taking the Elite Grade National Title held in Liverpool.  

The elite grading system is split into three grades the first being Compulsory 4 this is for children aged 9 the second grade is Compulsory 3 for children aged 10 and then the final grade which is Compulsory 2 for children aged 11.  

Pipers vale have had success in the past at these grades with Alice Foster winning Compulsory 4 and Sophie Caparn winning compulsory 3.  Molly Taylor has become the first gymnast ever , not just in the clubs History but also in the History of this event nationally, to take all three titles in consecutive years.  

Molly took the Compulsory 4 title in 2007 beating of strong challenges from gymnasts from Newcastle, Horsham, East London, Nottingham etc.  In 2008 she took the compulsory 3 title and in 2009 In Liverpool she narrowly won the Compulsory 2 title.  

The Compulsory 2 competition is where the gymnasts, if successful, go on to the British Championships and National squads.   

The competition was fierce and the girls competing were of an extremely high level. Molly started on Floor where she competed a good floor routine scoring the highest mark of the day.

Next was Range and Conditioning where she made a mistake but still scored the highest mark of the day.

A big mistake on vault left her in second place going to bars a solid bar routine meant that she was now 1.0 mark behind the leader going to beam her last piece.   

The gymnast in first place was in Molly’s group and had to go first. Only the gymnast falling would let Molly in with a chance. The very first combination the gymnasts fell this gave Molly the opportunity to win.   

By this time the whole hall had gone quiet she was the only gymnast working all eyes were on her and she was obviously feeling the pressure.

 Molly started shakily having to make a big correction on her first element. She then settled down and began to perform. She finished the routine with out any other major mistakes and all it left was to see if she had scored enough to win.   

She needed 11.85 to draw and 11.9 to win. With highest score on beam being 12.4 for the day  and the correction she had, had to make we were not sure she had done it. Her score came 12.05 she had won by 0.2.  

This now means that Molly has won a trip in July to the European Training camp in Terrinia which Northern Italy where she will get coached by some of the best coaches in the World. This also gives her automatic selection into The National Development squad.