National bronze for Morrow
Horsham gymnastics export Ryan Morrow believes he has plenty of improvement ahead of him after medalling at the Australian Gymnastics Championships for a second consecutive year.
Morrow, who moved to Adelaide for study reasons, competed for South Australia in the level nine open category at the championships in Melbourne at the weekend, after moving up from level eight last year.
Level nine is the third highest level of competition, behind only level 10 and senior international competition.
The 21-year-old said he was unsure how he would fare in his first year at level nine standard, but was ecstatic after claiming a bronze medal for his floor routine.
He was ranked first on floor after the first day of competition but was relegated to equal third after two competitors overtook his score on the second day of competition on Sunday.
Morrow also missed winning a bronze medal on rings after finishing fourth by 0.05 points, and vault where he was fifth.
“I was pretty stoked to finish third on floor,” he said.
“Given the toughness and the closeness of the competition it was a nice surprise to place.
“I was sitting first place on floor after
day one, but a couple of blokes who had falls cleaned up on day two so they popped in on top.”
Morrow described the rest of his day one performances as a ‘mixed bag’, but said he improved on nearly every apparatus on day two.
“There were a few personal goals that were nice to hit,” he said.
“It was reassuring. My skills weren’t necessarily the hardest, but execution can sometimes make up for that.
“Now it’s about trying to combine the two and up the difficulty in the next few months, and see where that takes me.”
Morrow said he would spend at least another year competing at level nine before moving up again.
“In the lower levels it normally takes a year to move up from one level to the next, but in the upper levels you can have people stay for a number of years on one level,” he said.
“Sometimes you can just get stuck at a certain level, because the higher you go and the harder the skills, the longer it takes to develop newer and harder skills again.
“Now it’s about cleaning up and putting in some bigger skills at level nine, which will be good.”
Morrow said despite now living in South Australia, he had plenty of Wimmera support in the lead up to and during the championships.
“It was really nice to have a fair showing of old Natimuk and District Gymnastic Club families that came down to support me, or even just send good wishes when I was home training,” he said. “It’s special to have a club that’s a bit of a family back home, and to have them behind me meant a lot.”