Ireland debuts at Rhythmic European Championships

The second day of competition at the Rhythmic Junior Europeans took place today in the Holon Toto Hall in Tel Aviv, with the gymnasts competing with the Ball and Clubs.

 
The Irish girls who were competing at this event for the first time put in some strong individual performances with Anna Batmanova's score of 13.741 with the Clubs of particular note. All the girls scored personal best's all round. The full list of the girls scores from today are below.
 
Anastasia Tsay's -13.183 - Ball. 
Anna Batmanova - 12.4 - Ball and 13.741 - Clubs
Valeria Sapteboi - 11.608 - Clubs.
 
Kristina Rangelova, National Rhythmic Performance coach said "I am very proud of the team & the gymnasts showed a strong mental ability under pressure". 
 
Valentina Culicova, Ireland's Team Leader/performance coach said " their performances were very emotional for the spectators, the girls looked classy."
 
Gymnastics Ireland CEO, Ciaran Gallagher was happy with the progress made by the three girls in this new territory for rhythmic gymnastics in Ireland. "On behalf of all at Gymnastics Ireland I would like to congratulate our Rhythmic delegation on their completion of competition at the 2016 European Championships in Tel Aviv, Israel. This is the first time Ireland has ever sent a Rhythmic team to such a high level event and the girls, their coaches and clubs should all be proud of this achievement and its importance for our growing Rhythmic programme in Ireland."

 
Next up on the Gymnastics competition calendar is the Rio Olympics, where our Artistic Gymnasts, Kieran Behan and Ellis O'Reilly will take to the floor in Brazil in early August.