The past two years have been demanding for Blake Grainger and Jack Hemmings but their hard work and sacrifice paid off earlier this month.
The pair of tumblers from the Kachan School of Tumbling, finished very high up in the world rankings at the International Gymnastics Federation World Age Group Championship earlier this month.
Jack finished fourth in the extremely competitive 17-18 men’s division, and Blake finished just outside the final eight, claiming a 10th place.
The pair both said the trip to Denmark for the championships was a fantastic experience, and was well worth the effort they put in to make it.
Jack said was extremely happy with fourth place.
“It was really good, it was a good experience,” he said.
“I was really happy with what I did, it was such a great experience, it was crazy.
“We were hoping to get into the top eight, so when it happened it was very exciting and then fourth happened and it was just a bonus from there.”
Blake said he knew there was room for improvement, but was still happy with where he finished at his second trip to the world age championship.
“I was thinking I was going to be at the higher end of the competition going over there,” he said.
“My difficulty was pretty competitive, a few people were doing routines that I couldn't quite match but I did well overall.”
Hemmings said a trip to a Danish gymfor a training camp before the competition was a massive help.
“I feel the camp helped, because we were tumbling on the floors they were using and getting used to the environment,” he said.
“In our gym we have three different floors and in Denmark we tumbled on all different ones. We don't know what the competition floors will be like until you train on them.”
Blake and Jack were accompanied by Ellie Smith, Ethan McGuinness, Sophie Wilson and Henry Clark.
