City of Preston gymnasts shine in Finland

Preston's gymnasts secured the top qualifying scores in every apparatus and also brought home four golds, three silvers, and five bronze, becoming the most successful club at this international competition.

The club was the only UK representative, including clubs from Finland, Iceland and Sweden.

Out of 80 gymnasts, City of Preston placed first and Katy Yu was all around champion, second-place went to Emily Yu, third was Devon Cain, fourth Evie Thornton, fifth Issy Kay, eighth Sophia Bah, ninth Amelia Jenkins and Amelia Sugden was 12th.

The top 8 out of 80 gymnasts on each apparatus made the finals resulting in 32 slots.

The eight City of Preston gymnasts flipped and somersaulted their way into impressing the judges and collectively bagged 22 of the available 32 slots!

The City of Preston Gymnastics and Performance Centre in Campbell Street is one of the largest state-of-the-art facilities in Europe.

The outstanding facility, with 10 sets of bars and foam pits, helps aid Preston to be known as a force to be reckoned with when clubs compete for the top asymmetric bars places.

The effect was evident at the Åland Invitational, where Preston qualified for every place in the asymmetrical bars apparatus final, no other countries or clubs could break through the top band of Preston.

Triple gold medal winner Katy Yu, who won every event she entered, has since come home and straight into another competition where she scored the highest compulsory two-competition score of every child her age in the North West of England region, and is looking forward to the British finals in two weeks.

Gymnast Emily Wilson also travelled with the team to Finland; however, due to carrying an injury, her coaches decided for her safety to sit this out.

She stepped up to the junior assistant coach role to support her team-mates and was a massive contributor to the outstanding success. She is now back to full fitness and is looking forward to competing in Malta in a few weeks’ time.