2016 European Championships teams announced

The 2016 artistic gymnastics European Championships begin next week in Bern, Switzerland with our strong line-up of gymnasts aiming to be amongst the medals in the last major championships before the Rio Olympic Games.Our senior men’s team will be pommel World Champion Max Whitlock (South Essex) along with our World Championships team silver medal winners Dan Purvis (Southport), Louis Smith MBE (Huntingdon), Kristian Thomas (Earls/Wolverhampton)  and Nile Wilson (Leeds).Our senior women’s team will be European bars champion Becky Downie (Notts) with fellow World Championship team bronze medallists Ellie Downie (Notts), Claudia Fragapane (Bristol Hawks), Ruby Harrold (The Academy/Portishead) and 2014 European team silver medallist Rebecca Tunney (Liverpool).The format of this year’s championships matches that of 2014, with medals awarded for senior team and individual apparatus events and junior team, all-around and apparatus events. Our senior men are reigning senior silver medallists and junior champions and our women’s team reigning senior and junior silver medallists. At last year’s European Championships our senior gymnasts scooped a record six apparatus medals.Men’s Head National Coach, Eddie Van Hoof “This is an important championships, particularly with Rio just 8 weeks after, and a good opportunity to try some tactical options. We have a strong team with a good balance of experience and youth who are all highly motivated as they step up preparations for the Olympics. For the juniors the expectation is to try and continue our successful run and they are working very hard to follow in the footsteps of the senior gymnasts.” Women’s Head National Coach, Amanda Reddin “For the senior girls this is another big step on the road to Rio and a chance to compete some new skills and combinations that they’ve been working on in preparation for the Games. The juniors have the opportunity to compete at a major championships as they ready themselves for the step up to senior level and so we’re looking …

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