GYMNAST Sarah Cull had the best day of her gymnastic career when she came second in the Northern final of the Alpha Factor Cup held at Melksham.

Sarah had a good all round competition and was delighted to be selected for the team to go to the Grand Final at Poole on November 18.

Three other members of the Forest of Dean Gymnastic Club were also competing.

In the age 11 years, Level Four competition, Sophie Danby performed an outstanding vault which received a landing bonus. She easily won this piece and continued well to also achieve third place on beam. Sophie just missed out on a team place in the final by coming seventh, the first six being selected.

Felicity Brown performed excellent floor and beam routines but needs a higher level of difficulty to raise her start value. She shows much more confidence in competition now.

For Emma James the day did not start well. She had a disaster on floor and knew her overall score would be low.

Six gymnasts from the boys' squads have been selected for South West teams representing the region at the national finals of the both national and regional development plan grades.

At the recent South West national development plan championships two boys were selected for national finals, Chris Brown and Michael Adams.

Chris gained selection for the SW Primary four team by coming fourth overall with a score of 54.60. He also outstandingly won the vault and came second on pommels.

At Primary three, Michael won parallel bars, came second on floor and third on rings and vault to help him into a team place for the finals also. These finals will be held at The Lilleshall National Sports Centre on November 22.

At the Regional Development Plan Championships held in Exeter four boys gained selection for the RDP National finals to be held at Poole in December. Stuart Brown stormed into first place in Primary two by winning all apparatus except parallel bars where he came second.

Connor Lewis came second in Primary three, Richard Tullett came third and Joshua Robbins came fourth. All boys gained well deserved places in the team.

The boys are all coached by Romanian coach Paul Urzica. Paul himself was a world class gymnast and his brother, Marius, is an Olympic champion having won the pommel horse finals at Sydney Olympics.

Paul also put his junior boys squad in the RDP Championships for experience.

Two years too young they nevertheless rose to the occasion. Alex Jukes completed his six leg circles on mushroom, Alex Klaiber performed a good front somersault vault, Ben Hayes had good swings on rings and Osian Nixon was good all round. Relative newcomer to the club, Michael McKenna won pommels and was exceptional on rings. He came ninth out of 23 gymnasts.

The club is making great progress with the gymnasts. Not only have these boys made it to the national finals but several of them have been chosen to go to national squad trials later this year.