Flowers of Scotland as girls take the top honours at national finals

Oct 11 2007 West Lothian Courier

CLEANING up at the Voluntary Scottish finals in Perth were the impressive West Lothian Artistic Gymnastics Club.

The club is going from strength to strength and producing winners at all age group levels.

At the national event the club recorded further success when they took the second, third, fourth and sixth places.

These were taken by Aimee Bryce, Shannon Archer, Caitlin O’Brien and Jade McKinnon respectively.

Their superb displays have also helped Aimee, Shannon and Caitlin to earn places as Scottish representatives at the British Finals in November at Guildford.

The standard of the club stretches across all age groups and Jaclyn Duff gained a gold at the voluntary challenge 12 plus in the Scottish competition 12-13 age group.

Meanwhile, Lauren Graham achieved an overall second place at the Senior Scottish Championships.

The girls are making their mark in a challenging and demanding sport while flying the flag for the club.

One of the biggest problems faced by the girls is the need for improved training facilities.

Although a well established gymnastics club, the facilities are in need of updating as the gymnasts’ are forced to travel further afield to access more appropriate and up to date equipment.

This has a negative impact on their training time and disrupts the planning arrangements of their coach, Pauline Clark.

However, the club and gymnasts commitment and enthusiasm is not dampened by this and they continue to strive for excellence in training and competition alike.

Ruth Griffin, head coach of the club, admitted the need for new facilities.

She said: “Although we have invested heavily in the club facilities and quality of coaching over the years, we can not keep apace with the needs of these talented youngsters.”

The club are keen to hear from any business who would like to consider some form of sponsorship to help towards upgrading the facilities.

Anyone interested in helping the club is asked to contact Ruth on 0131 622 1201.