Saturday 12th September saw the annual awards presentation for our Squad Class. It was a tough decision for our Squad coaches this year as they sat down to determine who are the deserving recipients of the annual awards for 2014 – 2015. The awards are open to all gymnasts in our Squad class, regardless of their age.
Most Improved Award
The Most Improved award goes to a gymnast who has worked hard during the year to improve her on own capabilities in gymnastics. This year the award went to Isla Marsh, aged 9 from Squad 3.
Isla has worked tirelessly over the last year to improve her gymnastics in every aspect – strength, courage, determination and flexibility. On top of this she did very well to improve on her competition results from last year and has learned to take feedback from her coaches very well. Her dedication to training and positive attitude have helped Isla with her improvements over the last 12 months. This is Isla’s first year winning a Sugarloaf Annual award and one of the youngest recipients to date.
Best Gymnast Award
The Best Gymnast award goes to a gymnast who is a role model to our other gymnasts, in every aspect they are the best gymnast, whether it be commitment, attitude, performance or perseverance. This years award went to Alice Fitzgerald, aged 13 from Squad 1.
Alice has a superb attitude to training, a fantastic rapport with every coach and a positive can – do attitude. She has great commitment to the sport of gymnastics showing this with an excellent attendance record to training and taking the opportunity, where given, to attend extra training sessions. Alice always gives 100% in every session. She showed her perseverance this year by pushing herself in training and striving to meet her goal which was to compete in the Irish FIG Junior competition, where she finished in 6th place on both Bars and Beam (having qualified into the top 8 in the country) and 9th All Around in her first year compete at the top level in Ireland. This is Alice’s second year in a row to win an award, having won the Most Improved award in 2014 and balances her time between both gymnastics a gaelic football.
Sugarloaf Spirit Award
As many of our members are aware, in June 2015, Sugarloaf Gymnastics lost one of our very loved gymnasts Georgia Murphy,aged 13, due to a tragic asthma attack. She is deeply missed in Sugarloaf by her coaches and team mates. Georgia was a beautiful girl and a great friend, who had been part of Sugarloaf Gymnastics since a young age. During her time with us she was always so friendly, bubbly and pleasant. Georgia made every effort to make sure that everyone in her group was included and made a great impact on everyone who’s life she graced during her short time in the world. With this in mind, we wanted to honour and remember Georgia and ensure that her spirit lived on in gymnastics, so we created the Sugarloaf Spirit Award, a beautiful silver trophy engraved with a friendly duck and the words “in loving memory of Georgia Murphy”.
Why a duck? Click here for more information and to understand why we have a wall of ducks and rubber duckies on the wall at Vault.
In it’s inaugural year the Sugarloaf Spirit Award went to Deirbhle Ivory, aged 18, Squad 1. Deirbhle is so well deserving of this award as, like Georgia, she always has time for every gymnast – no matter what their age. She takes time to listen to others and to help others struggling to understand or learn a new skill. She is fantastic friend to all of her team mates and is loved by everyone in Sugarloaf. Deirbhle has such a positive attitude and can always see the good in a difficult situation, in both her own training and in her job as coaching other gymnasts. Deirbhle has also had great success previously being a recipient of both the Most Improved and Best Gymnast awards and is also a talented cyclist.
Congratulations to all of our Sugarloaf Award recipients. We are now in our 2015 – 2016 year and are on the look out for next years deserving recipients!
