Five members of the Jersey Special Gymnastics Club produced some outstanding routines to gain a huge haul of medals at the Downs Syndrome Gymnastics Competition in New College, Leicester.

Jessica Vieira, Sinead Laverty, Eloise Clyde-Smith and Rachel Christie were all competing against each other in the Senior Girl's Level 2 competition and were in a group of eight gymnasts.

The Jersey Girls proved too strong for their opposition, taking all of the medals in their Group!
 

Rui Reis competed in the Senior Men's level 2 competition and produced some great work to win five Gold medals on Rings, Parallel Bars, Pommel, High Bar and Floor and added a Bronze on Vault.

Full results below:

Jersey gymnasts won six gold medals, and five others, at the British Disability Masters Championships 2017 in Liverpool.

Alex Buesnel had an outstanding tournament at the Echo Arena, winning five Masters titles. He had to work really hard this year to keep ahead of his teammates and other competitors, but he managed to keep his composure, and produced some great routines.

Alex won the Floor, Rings, Vault, Parallel Bars and Pommel titles, and took fourth on High Bar after a fall on landing, his only error of the day.

Despite his first appearance at this event, Matthew Kirkland had a great competition, winning the Disability Masters title on High Bar. 

He also took third place on Pommel and Floor. Matthew really enjoyed the experience and was extremely pleased with his success.

Aaron Bonnar won three medals, a silver on High Bar and bronze on Rings and Parallel Bars.

Aaron has really improved the difficulty in his routines this year and he was rewarded with some great scores. 

James Lang won a Silver medal on Pommel with a clean routine, and he was fourth on three other pieces of apparatus.

James was happy with his performances, and again really enjoyed the experience. 

Cailiegh Quail was the first Jersey gymnast to compete, in the Women's uneven bars, where she gave a great performance.

Cailiegh completed a clean routine to take sixth place overall.

Make no mistake, these five are some of the best disability gymnasts in Great Britain. There was a large crowd to watch the top mainstream and disability gymnasts in Great Britain compete for the various titles.

British Gymnastics put on a fantastic display, with pillars with fire and smoke.

Laser lights adding to the drama of the event, as gymnasts entered the arena.

24-year-old special gymnast Alex Buesnel has become the first member of the Jersey Sports Association for the Disabled to be selected for the Island Games.
 

He has made the 13-strong Jersey gymnastics squad for the 2017 Games in Gotland this summer.

This historic selection comes just three months after Alex became just one of four British ambassadors for gymnastics.

“I am delighted, and honoured, to have been selected to represent Jersey,” he said.

He’s also keen that his selection will motivate others. “I hope I am an inspiration for all disability athletes. I will work hard, and give my best, and hope to win a medal.”

Praise for Alex has been flooding in. Paul Patterson, the founder of the JSAD, told us: “We are all very proud of his achievement in doing this on top of all his other wonderful successes over the last ten years.”

And Paul also hopes that this will positively affect others. “He is a wonderful role model that I hope many will aspire to emulate in the future.”

Jersey Sports Council chairman Hugh Raymond tweeted: “Great honour for @Alex Buesnel @Jsyspecialgym to represent #jersey well done JSAD.”

Read how the BBC’s Brent Pilnick reported this historic occasion.

The last words on this are perhaps the most telling, from Paul Patterson.

“For me it is so satisfying to hear that Alex was selected because of his ability in his chosen sport – no other reason – just his ability. Now that is wonderful stuff!”

Alex Buesnel is British Disability Open Champion for the ninth year running.

This fantastic achievement was made possible by his outstanding floor and rings routine which kept him ahead of the competition.

And if that was not enough, it has been announced that Alex is to be one of only four British Gymnastic ambassadors for his sport.

More details here.

But this was far from a one-man show for Jersey Special Gymnastics Club, as the other five Jersey competitors also produced outstanding performances at the Lilleshall National Sports Centre.

Aaron Bonnar took a great second place overall. He completed four new skills and was successful in all of them.

James Lang and Matthew Kirkland also had great success on individual apparatus. This was Matthew’s first year of competing in the senior competition.

Cailiegh Quail achieved second place overall in the Ladies Senior Open. This followed a great bar routine, and she also scored well on the vault.

And 40-year old Rui Reis, competing in a very large group in the Men’s Senior B, won overall gold, and won a medal on every piece of apparatus!

Full details in the table below the image.