four gymnasts from Beccles Royales Gymnastics Club entered the Bury Friendly Team competition keen to emulate the success of Team GB gymnasts and return with medals.

This was a competition where the top three scores from the four team members on each piece of equipment would give a team total – with Beccles competing against five other teams.

The gymnasts did not know their scores and team placing until the presentation at the end of the competition, so had to maintain their concentration throughout.

They opened with their floor routines and with Imogen Ogden, Claire Gasking and Daisy Tyrell-Kent producing the three best scores for the team they were in silver position.

They all performed excellent vaults and moved up into gold, with Holly Richardson's vault counting towards the team total and giving a lead of a mere 0.4.

The bars had not been going well in training the day before and it was a question of whether they could put that behind them and perform at their usual standard.

They did, and all four scores were separated by only 0.9, increasing their grip on the gold position; leading now by 2.6.

Warm-up on beam, their last and most nerve-racking piece, was not encouraging with all having falls or wobbles. However, they were determined to keep up the fight for a medal and performed excellent beam routines when it counted.

They were rewarded by completing the competition in gold with 137.35 points and a lead of 3.5 over the Silver medallists. An unexpected additional reward came when individual medals were presented to the overall top scorers, and Claire was awarded gold with a score of 46.60.

Team-mate Imogen claimed bronze with 45.70, while Holly was placed seventh with a score of 44.35 and Daisy joint eighth with 44.15.

Their coach said they had competed against each other in previous competitions but this was the first time they had competed as a team and it was really good to see them encouraging and supporting each other with a determination to do well. Their close scores showed how competitive they are.

They next travel with other club members to Ipswich to compete in a county competition.