Gymnastics: National Championship |08 October 2014

Nalletamby, Mondon the winners

Young Spartacus Nalletamby and Jolene Mondon emerged as the male and female winners of the National Gymnastic Championship organised last weekend by the Seychelles Gymnastics Federation.

Nalletamby was competing in the boys’ advanced category where he finished with a total 40.7 points to win the competition ahead of Dylan Pelissier (39.6 points) and Samuel Valentin (39.4 points).

The boys in the advanced category had to compete in six events – floor, pommel horse, rings, parallel bar, vault and high bar.

For the girls, Mondon won first position after collecting 37.3 points after having competed on the vault, bar, beam and floor. Second place went to Lissa Rosette with 35.1 points, while Bianca Zaccari was third with 33.8 points.

There was also competition for the less-experienced gymnasts, where Debora Albest finished as the winner of the girls’ category with 32.6 points. Kelsey Confait finished second with 31.3 points.

As for the boys, it was Leiran Jean who won the competition, amassing 35.4 points to finish ahead of Marius Asman who won 33.9 points.
Coach Floyd Nalletamby, father of Spartacus and himself a former gymnast, said the gymnasts have made a lot of improvement since the sport was given a new lease of life last year.

“I am pleased with the progress of the gymnasts,” he said.
Coach Nalletamby though expressed concern over the future development of the gymnasts saying: “We really need to invest in better training facilities as our gymnasts now need high level training and the venue we have now is risky and inadequate for such training to take place.”

Girls’ coach Sonny Lime said they have received a lot of children who are willing to take up gymnastics but have had to turn a lot of them down unfortunately.

“We have such a small venue and therefore cannot accommodate many gymnasts,” he said. “We also have a shortage of coaches, which means we cannot accept too many athletes as our coaches will be overworked.”

The Seychelles Gymnastic Federation would like to thank Seychelles Petroleum Company and Bonjour Seychelles for their generous sponsorships in making the championship a success.

S. N.