Top 12 France : multiple success for our gymnasts

This weekend, Jimmy Verbaeys, Nina Derwael, Senna Deriks and Julie Meyers were back in action at the French Top 12, France's championships. This competition was also the opportunity for us to see how our gymnasts would score under the new code of points. Let's have a look at how they did!

Credit: ffgym.fr

On Saturday, Jimmy Verbaeys helped the team from Sotteville win the bronze medal in the match against La Madeleine for the 3rd place. In a very tense final, made of duels on each apparatus, Jimmy Verbaeys looked super steady, hitting 6 routines out of 6. This competition was the ideal way for Jimmy to prepare for the upcoming European Championships. But before that, he will travel to Germany for the Team Challenge Cup in Stuttgart.

Rankings:

1. Antibes

2. Clamart

3. Sotteville (with Jimmy Verbaeys)

4. La Madeleine

Crédit: ffgym.fr

On Sunday, Nina Derwael competed alongside the team of Dunkerque, while Julie Meyers and Senna Deriks competed with Saint-Étienne. Nina started on floor, where she unfortunately made a mistake on one of her turns to score 11.466. She then moved on to vault and bars where she hit clean routines, especially on bars, where she presented a brand new combination : Tkatchev half turn to Ezhova. With this new routine, Nina, known for her excellent work on bars, scored 14.400, which was not only the highest score on bars (tied with Alison Lepin), but the highest score of the entire competition. 

She finished on beam, where she unfortunately had a costly mistake to score 12.200. With a total of 194.928, Dunkerque placed 5th.

Credit: Spotlight Gymnastics

Julie and Senna both had mistakes but helped their team win gold. Senna had to count a fall on beam while Julie fell on her whip to double pike on floor and then had to count a mistake on bars. 

Credit: Spotlight Gymnastics

They then presented good vaults. Senna hit a beautiful bars set to score 14.033. Saint-Étienne won gold with a total of 203.528 ahead of Avoine and Dijon.

Credit: Spotlight Gymnastics

Team rankings:

1. Saint-Étienne (with Senna Deriks and Julie Meyers) 203.528

2. Avoine 203.060

3. Dijon 202.795

4. Meaux 198.796

5. Dunkerque (with Nina Derwael) 194.928

Individual rankings:
1. Louise Vanhille 52.898
2. Elizaveta Kochetkova 52.798
3. Jaylene Gilstrap 52.199
4. Senna Deriks 51.798
6. Nina Derwael 51.666
27. Julie Meyers 47.432

Next step for our WAG team is the Sainté Gym Cup (25-26 March) and the Trofeo Città di Jesolo (1-2 April), followed by the European Championships (19-23 April).

Full results: here
Videos: here
Pics: here

Massive thank you to Spotlight Gymnastics for the videos and the pictures!