Newly-formed acrobatic partnership Matthew Beviss (10) and Jamie Jeffery (16) maintained Honiton’s recent record for excellent men’s pair partnerships by taking the Grade 3 South West title at last weekend’s regional preliminaries in Taunton.

The pair will now go on to represent the south west region at the national finals in Stoke on Trent in May.

Beviss, a pupil at Honiton Primary School, and Jeffrey, who attends the Woodroffe School in Lyme Regis, were competing in their first serious competition together after the latter joined the club just over six months ago. The duo performed two routines, the ‘balance’ and the ‘dynamic’.

Honiton Gym Club high performance coach James Reddy said: “Matt and Jamie have come a long way in a very short space of time. Jamie’s a natural talent and seems to improve hugely every session he’s in the gym. Matt only learnt to somersault two months ago and he now has four in one routine – forwards and backwards! They’ll now be working hard to perfect their moves and learn a new routine so that they can make the most of their opportunity at the national finals in May.”

In addition to the pairs gold medal success there were some other notable achievements from Honiton gymnasts at the event.

In the Grade 2 Girls’ Trio event, with the exception of the gold medal, gymnasts from the club claimed many of the leading berths.

Emma Saunders, Charlotte Drawer and Megan Quick put in a fine performance to take the silver, and Ellie England, Sharna Curley and Emily Lee took bronze. They were closely followed by Jasmine Waterfield, Francesca Cade and Keira Bonetta in fifth (just one tenth of a mark away from the medals); George Greenyer, Somer Horsfield and Phoebe Simeons in ninth; and Saffron Herbert, Emily Bristol and Faith Symonds in 10th.

Reddy said: “This was an extremely competitive category that included 22 partnerships. Less than one mark separated the top 10, which meant that minor errors made a huge difference to the final results.”

Another very competitive category was the Grade 2 Girls’ Pairs event, with 22 entrants. Honiton’s Lauren Davey and Lois Norman took fifth with a score of 25.35 (a score that would have won gold in many of the day’s other disciplines), closely followed by Megan Quick and Isla Cloke in sixth who scored 25.20. In the Grade 2 Out of Age Girls Pair event, Kaci Brooks and Becky Fullard finished in fifth position.

This coming weekend the club’s younger gymnasts will compete at their regional ‘grades’ preliminaries in Sherborne, Dorset.

For more information about Honiton Gymnastics Club, visit www.honitongymclub.org or contact hnayler@hotmail.com