2023 Scottish Artistic Championships
Building on last year’s exciting event, the Scottish Artistic Gymnastics Competition returned to Bell’s Sports Centre over three days (Friday 17th, Saturday 18th, Sunday 19th February).
The event saw top men’s and women’s artistic gymnasts competing to achieve podium places, with many familiar faces from last summer’s Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games amongst the over 140 competitors.
It was a busy event for South Essex Gymnastics Club as we had 10 of our gymnasts and coaches involved in the action packed weekend. Gemma Wright and Jeff Davies were judging this year's championships and due to an unfortunate injury which ruled her out of competing, South Essex Gymnastics Clubs very own bronze commonwealth games medallist Shannon Archer presented the impressive event. Our gymnasts that competed over the weekend performed tremendously well from categories U16 to U18 to senior, accomplishing many high scores on many different apparatuses. Starting in the U16 category, we had 3 male gymnasts competing. Starting off with George Atkins, who placed 1st for rings and joint 1st for high bar.
Also, twins Yoan and David Ivanov, who represent Bulgaria, placed 1st and 2nd All Around, with David putting in an exceptional pommel horse routine scoring 13.950.
Moving on to the U18 category, where Alexander Niscoveanu competed after recently recovering from injury. He achieved 1st place in rings and high bar. Finally, onto the senior category where Max Whitlock OBE was returning to his first competition back since the 2020 summer Olympic games in Tokyo. After a few difficult years, Max looked more confident than ever as he tackled the pommel horse and placed 1st with an incredible score of 14.850, marking a great comeback to competitive gymnastics for him. Pavel Karnejenko was looking to retain his men's senior champion title this year and with an impressive start to the championship, he was an early frontrunner. Pavel attained a total score of 81.900, which included a phenomenal score of 14.700 on rings, retaining his men's senior champion title.
The event made great success for our club with many 1st and 2nd places, but none of that would've been possible without the support and dedication of our director of coaching, Scott Hann MBE, and head of men's artistic, Anthony Wise, who both attended the championships over the weekend.
We are very proud of all gymnasts who competed and dedicated many months to preparation for the championships, and well done to everyone who competed and was determined to do their best. Congratulations to George Atkins, Yoan Ivanov, David Ivanov, Alexander Niscoveanu, Max Whitlock OBE, Pavel Karnejenko and Shannon Archer.
