Angela Donald, the baby of the Australian Team, has created history at the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore by winning her country’s first artistic medal at this level.

The 14-year-old produced the best routine of her career to win the bronze medal in the beam final with a score of 14.450.

She changed her routine from a double twist dismount to a double pike dismount from what she executed in the All Around competition for what was then a 14.100 personal best score. Her 6.00 degree of difficulty was the second highest in the final.

After completing her routine there was big smiles and high fives with her coach and competitors. 

The gold was won by Tan Sixin of China with 15.550 and the silver to Carlotta Ferlito of Italy (14.825). Donald competed second after Tan so was in the silver medal position until the final routine of the competition from Ferlito. Russia’s Viktoria Komova fell off the beam and finished seventh.

Donald was thrilled with her achievement.

“Third in the world for juniors is quite amazing. I just can’t wait to get back into training and win more medals,” she laughed. 

“I was thinking top 10 or top 8 at the start of the Games so this is definitely more than I had hoped for.”

Donald was fourth in uneven bars and seventh in the All Around final.

“Adding the extra difficulty in my dismount helped me a lot and made all the difference. I really want to add extra difficulty now to all my routines,” the ecstatic gymnast said. 

Her coach of five years Shaoyi Jiang was very pleased with her young star. 

“It all went to plan. We added difficulty and she did a great routine,” Jiang said. 

“She a good girl and she is so happy. 

Jiang confidently predicted that Donald will qualify for the ‘senior’ Olympic Games in London in 2012 as part of the Australian All Around Team. 

Donald is also already thinking London. 

“This makes me want to go and train more, increase my difficulty on my routines and go to London,” the year 9 student from Melbourne said.

Angela’s mum Susan was there to witness the wonderful achievement and her dad and sister watched it live over the internet. They were then on the phone immediately to pass on their congratulations.

Sadly it was not the same lucky night for her teammate Brodie-Jai Hennessy who finished eighth in the men's final of the high bar.

In what was his first overseas international competition, Hennessy unfortunately fell from the high bar.

To his credit, he returned to the apparatus and finished his routine. He showed both strength of character and good sportsmanship.

Great Britain’s Sam Oldham won the gold medal scoring a total of 14.375. Nestor Abad of Spain took the silver and Xiaodong Zhu of China the bronze concluding the artistic gymnastics competition for the Games.

Hennessy has gained a great deal from this experience and will return to Brisbane with extra motivation for the future.

Andrew Reid
AOC