Alex Niscoveanu and Ruby Allen strike gold on memorable third day of Artistic British Championships

Gold medals for Alex Niscoveanu and Ruby Allen were the highlights of a memorable third day of the 2023 Artistic British Championships for Welsh gymnasts in Liverpool.

Alex, who trains out of South Essex, was crowned as the new British Men’s Under 18 All-Around champion, scoring 77.350 across his six pieces of apparatus.

Ruby, from Neath Afan, scored 11.950 on uneven bars and that saw her secure Women’s Disability Masters gold on that piece while she also took home bronze for vault.  

The Women’s Disability Masters bring back together some of the top qualifying gymnasts from the most recent Disability British Championships, that were held last November in Cardiff, to compete for honours on each apparatus.

Meanwhile also competing in the Men’s Under 18 competition was Valleys’ Harrison Harris – who gave a good account of himself to finish inside the top 20 in Britain for his age group.

Alex also had the top score of the day on both floor and horizontal bar. He will return for apparatus finals on those pieces along with parallel bars.

Following on from her Women’s Aspire All-Around bronze medal on day one, Clwb Cymru Caerdydd’s Lexi Holmes was back out for the Women’s Aspire apparatus finals, finishing fourth on beam and fifth on vault.

Our senior gymnasts then took to the competition floor in the afternoon for the Men’s and Women’s All-Around competitions.

In the Women’s senior event, there were four Clwb Cymru gymnasts inside the top 10 with Poppy-Grace Stickler and Ruby Evans fourth and fifth respectively.

Mali Morgan finished eighth with Sofia Micallef 10^th.

Former double British Junior All-Around champion Ruby, competing here for the first time as a senior, also qualified second on vault and seventh on floor and will contest those finals.

Poppy, a senior bronze medallist on floor at last year’s British, will once again take her place in that final after qualifying third while was fifth on the balance beam.

There will be a strong Welsh presence in the vault final with Annais Kamanga and Mali Morgan (both Clwb Cymru) and Abi Roper (Pipers Vale) also qualified.

Sofia will contest a strong uneven bars final.

Mia Perryment (Basingstoke) is reserve for the beam final.

And on floor Sofia and Mali will join Poppy and Ruby in that final.

Well done also to Jea Maracha (Clwb Cymru) who finished 21st All-Around.

In the Men’s Senior competition, Joe Cemlyn-Jones secured himself a top six finish overall after going 79.100 All-Around.

The Team Wales and City of Birmingham man will be back to take his place in the rings, high bar, parallel bars and floor finals.

Of the other Welsh gymnasts in the Senior Men’s All-Around, Theo-Amari Ochana (Heathrow) was 13^th, Henry Lewis (Leeds) 15^th, Iwan Scrivens (Fusion) 22^nd, Sammy Morgan (YMCA Barry) 25^th.

Alice Kinsella (Park Wrekin) and Adam Tobin (Falcons) were crowned the new British Women’s and Men’s All-Around champions respectively.

Meanwhile the fourth and final day will also feature our Junior gymnasts in apparatus finals action.

Ffion Burgum and Ellie Lewis, who were second and third in the Women’s Junior All-Around on Friday, will return for the Women’s Junior floor final, with Ffion also on beam and Ellie on uneven bars.

Despite having posted the top qualification scores on beam and floor, Jemima Taylor won’t take her place in those finals as she instead heads out to Turkey with the Great Britain delegation for the Junior World Championships.