Olympic Champions and Team GB 2012 Ambassadors Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean provided a significant boost to Great Britain’s rhythmic gymnasts when they spent a day with the team at their University of Bath training centre on Saturday 3rd December.
The ice dance stars, who famously won gold at the Sarajevo 1984 Olympic Winter Games inspired the rhythmic gymnasts by providing them with artistic guidance and tips on how to maximise their performance for the audience and the judges as they continued to prepare their routines for the London 2012 test event, which takes place in London in January.
Torvill and Dean were unveiled in March by the British Olympic Association (BOA) as part of a 27 strong group of Britain’s most inspirational and accomplished Olympians to act as Team GB 2012 Ambassadors. Their appearance with rhythmic gymnastics forms part of a key initiative to bring together some of Britain’s most experienced and successful Olympians with athletes and sports preparing themselves to represent Team GB in the London 2012 Olympics.
The visit to rhythmic gymnastics follows a meeting between fellow ice dance Olympic Champion Robin Cousins and the GB synchronised swimming squad in Aldershot earlier this year. The BOA is continuing to work together with the Team GB 2012 Ambassadors and the National Governing Bodies of OIympic sports to schedule further partnerships in 2012. Torvill and Dean’s “Bolero” routine at the Sarajevo Games of 1984 attracted 12 perfect 6.0 scores from the judges and was watched by a then record UK TV audience of more than 24 million. The duo passed on that experience to the young gymnasts and were clearly impressed by some of the routines they saw.
Christopher Dean said:
Jayne Torvill immediately saw the similarities between ice-skating and this strand of gymnastics:
Sarah Moon, coach of the rhythmic gymnastics team said:
Rhythmic gymnast Jade Faulkner (Esprit RGC, South West England) said:
Rhythmic gymnast Rachel Smith (City of Coventry) added:
Rhythmic gymnast Lynne Hutchison (City of Bath) said:
The seven-strong training group are aiming to become the first British team to compete in the group competition at an Olympic Games. Their next challenge is at the London Prepares Series test event at the North Greenwich Arena from 16 to 18 January, when they will compete alongside world champions Italy as well as the teams finishing in seventh to 12th places at September’s World Championships – Ukraine, Switzerland, France, Israel, Greece and Spain – who are also bidding to qualify for 2012. The group had to achieve a score of 41.2 to qualify for the test event and they did it in style at the National Group Championships scoring 43.4. The group features seven athletes - Annie Bartlett, Francesca Fox, Georgina Cassar, Jade Faulkner, Louisa Pouli, Lynne Hutchison and Rachel Smith. They have been coached by Sarah Moon since January and they made the decision to come together to train full-time in Bath from July to give them the very best chance of achieving the standard they need to earn selection to Team GB for London 2012.
They return to action at an international competition in Zaragoza in Spain from 9 to 11 December when they will face many of the teams that will compete in the test event.