Gymnast Olivia Procter has been selected to represent Great Britain for the fifth time!
The 17-year-old Greenhead College student from Skelmanthorpe will head to the Acrobatic Gymnastics European Championships in Poland in October.
She is the current Women’s Pair World Champion with Jessica Gledhill, from Deepcar, but the partnership had to be changed at the end of last year’s competition cycle.
So, for less than a year, Olivia has been training in a new partnership at a higher level, Women’s Pair 12-18 category, with Evie Hancox, 13, from Ossett.
Olivia and Evie have succeeded in their opportunity to compete at the Europeans after a rigorous selection process at the Acrobatics Headquarters at Lilleshall – and following their outstanding success at the British Championships in Liverpool, where they won gold by huge margins.
In fact, they achieved one of the highest artistic scores of the three-day championship.
Olivia trains at Wakefield Gymnastics Club for 20 hours each week and her coach, Beth Miller, will be on the GB coaching squad.
Alexandra Howden has choreographed three superb routines for the pair.
Olivia also has the demands of A Levels to fit in with her training, studying geography, PE and psychology.
Acrobatic Gymnastics is entirely self-funded and the estimated cost of the competition in Poland is £1,300.
Wakefield Gymnastics Club is doing a lot of fundraising to support Olivia and Evie and two other partnerships from there who have also been selected; Joseph Hill and Cheri-May Cunningham (11-16 mixed pair) and Olivia Huscroft, Milly Eaton and Ruby Horsman (12-18 Women’s Trio).
As a club, they are happy to attend any events and perform displays in the county, and the gymnasts have also set up a ‘Go Fund Me’ page which can be found on www.gofundme.com/help-olivia-evie-for-gb to help raise funds towards the trip.
