Carlisle Graded Report – 5^th June 2005

 

It was Sunday morning, after a restless night sleep I woke up at 4:30 am!! I couldn’t get back to sleep so I thought I might as well start getting ready for the competition. At about 10 past 6 me and Carl left with Katie to meet everyone else (apart from Gary who went in his car!) at the leisure centre where the coach was booked to take us to Carlisle.

 

We set of from Ashington Leisure Centre at about 6:30 heading for Carlisle. On the way there everyone was laughing coz the bus driver was singing in the mirror! (I’m hoping he doesn’t read this, lol). We arrived at the Sands Centre in Carlisle at about 8am ! we were really early so we were the first club to get there ! So we all claimed our seats in the seating area and waited for the competition to start. Gary arrived at the sands centre about 10 minutes after us. After we were all sat down we got everyone from VerteX together to give Gary his birthday presents! Everyone from the club put our money together to buy Gary the Star Wars trilogy DVD box set because he is a big star wars fan !!. We also got Gary a T-Shirt with a school picture of him on the front from when he was little (Thanks Dawn and Julie !!! lol). It had Look Who’s 40 ! written under it !. Pam, Pip and Haz made a present for Gary which was a survival kit for the 40’s ! (I’ll not mention what was in it tho ! lol). There was loads of posters up around the leisure centre with Gary’s picture on them saying Look Who’s 40 Today!.

 

The competition started just before 9 am with the U9, U11 and U13 grade 4 and 6 groups competing. From our club we had Shannon competing in the U11 girls grade 6, Bethany and Lucy G in the Grade 4 U13 girls group, and Georgia in the U11 girls grade 4 group. Shannon did great and came 2^nd in her group out of 11, and got her first ever trophy!! Lucy G did well finishing 9^th, and getting through both routines! Georgia came 4^th and Bethany came 8^th.

 

After watching everyone compete for a while me, Katie, Carl, Lolly and Lauren set off to find the nearest McDonalds, we got lost at first ! But we eventually spotted the underground path that took us across the busy road and into the city centre. After we had something to eat we started heading back when we saw a card shop with a helium 40^th Birthday balloon in the window! Lolly bought the balloon for Gary and we headed back to the competition.

 

We got back just before 12 and went to collect our warm-up cards and get changed ready to compete. By that time Steven, Lucy T and Shauna were warming up and competing on their panel. Steven finished 6^th, Lucy T 6^th and Shauna 9^th in their groups. By this time I was feeling sick with nerves… it was my groups turn to warm up and compete next. My group was called to start our warm ups at 1pm, after a really bad and nervous 1^st warm up I was getting more nervous !!. Luckily it just took me a while to get used to the bed and I was getting better on every warm up. Ben Watson from Scotswood was in my group, which didn’t help my nerves !! since he won the national schools as an individual not long ago and is really neat !!. I knew the competition was going to be close between us 2 !. After we done our warm-ups I waited to do my controlled set warm up which went quite well. Then competing my set I lost it a bit after the pike barani which made my ½ twist travel but I managed to pull it back and finish the full routine !! I got got mainly 8’s from the judges for my set so I was pleased with that. After my controlled vol warm up it was my turn to compete. After a nervous performance I managed to get through the full routine which went quite well. I nearly fell on my out bounce but kept my balance and presented to the judges. By this time I knew I hadn’t qualified but thought I had came 2^nd to Ben… Katie and Carl were competing at the same time as me. Katie performed really well and got all 8’s and 8.1’s for her routines and came 1^st. Carl also performed really well and got his highest ever scores for a competition and came 2^nd. Eddy and Rachel T were competing at the same time as me, Eddy came 2^nd and Rachel came 6^th. To my surprise I came 1^st in my group with 50.9 points !, Ben also got 50.9 points but due to the tie break rule I came 1^st because I had a higher vol score (by 0.1 !!!). Even though I didn’t qualify I was really pleased coz I thought Ben was pretty much unbeatable with winning the schools !!.

 

After we had competed it was Lolly’s and Simon’s turn to compete. Louise did really well and got through both routines and came 5th. Simon also did very well but his tuck front wasn’t counted in his vol because he over rotated but still came 2^nd. After they had competed we had to wait for Danielle, Jessica and Heather to compete who weren’t on till later. Gail went on the speakers used by the organisers and got everyone to sing happy birthday for Gary while there was a little gap of no one competing!, we got everyone together again to give Gary his birthday cake too.

 

The competition was nearly finished when we had to go back on the coach; heather still had her final to do when we were leaving so Julie took her back in the car when she was finished. Heather finished 1^st in the 18 girls grade 3 group.

 

Everyone at VerteX did really well and I’m sure Gary had a good day too lol. Out of 18 entries VerteX got 7 trophies so we did really well.

 

By Lee

 

 

I took some really good pictures and videos from the day to put on this report but somehow they got deleted from my camera !! LLLL I don’t know what happened to them but I’m still trying to get them back so for now here is a picture of my trophy…
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