(Back) Payton Polido, Jorja Sagoleo, Summa Sidebottom, Rachael Jeffers, (front) Jean-Marie Jonker, Sienna Ciavarella, Hailey Gell and Sophie Pritchard are ready to represent Jets Gymnastics Shepparton at the 2024 Junior Victorian Championships.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
Shepparton’s fantastic, elastic gymnasts are about to end the year bombastically.
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After a bumper season on the bars and beams, a healthy herd of limber Jets Gymnastics disciples are gearing up for glory at the 2024 Junior Victorian Championships.
Simply put, the looming gymnastics mecca is flipping massive.
Held across two weekends on October 18-20 and 26-27, the best young talent in the state will congregate at Geelong Arena vying for medals — and Shepparton’s young jets are prepped and ready to walk away with some neck-bling.
Jets Gymnastics Shepparton members (back) Sienna Willis, Harry O’Halloran, Isabelle Vraca, (front) Kendra Hall and Lilly Peachey are ready to cap an epic year for the club.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
Two squads recently competed at the Australian Gymnastics Championships, while others strutted their stuff at the National Clubs Gymnastics Carnival on the Gold Coast earlier in the month.
In January, 10 young athletes from Jets Gymnastics Shepparton starred at the Aloha Gymfest in Hawaii, making 2024 one of the biggest years for the club.
But it’s not sign-off time yet.
“Our squads have done really well and we’re particularly excited to see how our squads will go at the state championships,” Jets centre manager Giles Pritchard said.
“We’ve been quite successful over a number of years with our squads making it to the state championships.
Alana Jordan, Abby Ervin, Miley Ciavarella, Thea McDonald, Ava Vraca, and Scarlett Kelly are a part of the club’s AGC program.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
“It’s not something you just roll into; you’ve got to go through qualifiers and all of those sorts of things.
“We had our regional championships up in Albury a couple of weeks ago and scored highly enough to make it through to the state championships in Geelong for most of our girls.”
Pritchard labelled Jets’ entry to the Junior Victorian Championships a “really big highlight for the year”, but there’s been another major development out of the Telford Dve gym.
Star boy Harry O’Halloran, 16, has achieved pro status under the AGC banner, becoming one of Shepparton’s first paid gymnasts.
It’s a feather in his — and Jets’ — cap, attesting to the fact gymnastics talent is currently blossoming throughout the wider Shepparton area.
Jets Gymnastics Shepparton member Harry O’Halloran is now a certified AGC pro gymnast.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
“We’ve been building our squad program over a number of years and we’ve traditionally been lucky enough to have some pretty talented kids in our squad over the last five or six years,” Pritchard said.
“We’re wanting to keep that ball rolling, to have that opportunity for kids locally.
“We’ve had some opportunities this year that we haven’t had in the past like the Aloha Gym Fest in Hawaii and the national clubs carnival on the Gold Coast.
“Our focus is still with eyes squarely on the states and that’ll mark the end of our season.”
