The Tribune

The third annual Atlantis Crown Invitational came to our beautiful island shores once again. Hosted by Branch Gymnastics and Kids Sports USA, the meet was held in the Imperial Ballroom at the Atlantis Resort, Paradise Island.

The meet held its opening ceremony and was followed by two days of intense competition by 415 gymnasts representing 30 gymnastics clubs competing from the USA and eight Caribbean countries, including Nassau, New Providence and Freeport, Grand Bahama.

One of the opening ceremony performances was a floor routine performed by Nassau Nastics coach/gymnast Rashad Cunningham who is a music major at the College of the Bahamas. Rashad also performed his floor routine at last year’s opening.

Nassau Nastics was represented by 32 registered gymnasts at the competition ranging from ages 5-18 and levels 1-8. This number has grown tremendously from last year’s 20 registered gymnasts and nine registered gymnasts in 2011. This just goes to show that gymnastics is growing in its popularity here on our island and our kids have the natural talent and ability to excel and do well in this sport.

The first day of competition began with Nassau Nastics level 1-3 participants. This was the largest group of gymnasts from the club Nassau Nastics, having 12 gymnasts in this session.

Five-year old Zante Ferguson and Danielle Moore, both level 1 gymnasts, started with Nassau Nastics as the little ones in the club’s tots programme. Ferguson started attending the club’s Saturday morning classes at the age of two and Moore, also at age two, began with Nassau Nastics’ ‘On the Move’ programme.

This is a programme where the club goes out into the community and offers gymnastics classes to preschools and other civic organisations. These gymnasts, along with their peers, performed very well.

Ferguson, who competed for the first time last month in Florida, scored a third place 8.300 on the floor, a first place 9.3 on the vault, a second place 8.7 on the bars and a second place 8.00 on the balance beam. She placed second overall and collected five medals at the Atlantis Crown.

Moore also scored second place 8.6 on the Floor, a third place 8.950 on the vault, a first place 8.750 on the bars and a fourth place 7.150 on the balance beam. Her overall score was a third place 33.450. This was Danielle’s first competition. Allyssa Monestime, Kia Pratt and Morgan Bethel were the other five-year-olds in this session who also did very well.

Other outstanding performances from Nassau Nastics came from the club’s older and more seasoned level 7-8 gymnasts. Savannah Brady, Rokelle Joseph, Toni Johnson and Toneka Johnson all had great routines at the Atlantis Crown meet. Toni and Toneka Johnson have both been with Nassau Nastics from ages 6-9 consecutivel y and they are now ages 15 and 18. Both gymnasts, after having a three-year absence from the club, were back and ready to perform.

Walking away with first place all around with a score of 34.100, Toneka Johnson placed first on bars, vault and floor. Toni Johnson placed second on vault with a score of 9.375 and fourth on balance beam with a score of 8.300.

18-year-old Zerline Johnson, a level 6 gymnast also competing for the first time, scored a 9.2 on her floor routine and a 9.0 on balance beam.

Interest in competitive gymnastics has also taken off at the Nassau Nastics’ east location in the Seagrapes Shopping Centre. This year there were eight registered gymnasts from this Nassau Nastics location compared to four registered participants in 2012.

Emily Taylor of the Seagrapes Nassau Nastics gym placed second on all four events and second overall with a score of 32.100. Cynvenet lopez placed third on bars and vault and Nicole Wong placed second on the balance beam and fourth on the floor.

The highlight of doing so well was that the medals were presented to these aspiring athletes by three time Olympic champion Svetlana Boginskaya.