By Carl Field
It was certainly a weekend to remember for Welsh tumbler Megan Surman who yesterday returned home from the 2022 Trampoline, Tumbling and DMT European Championships in Rimini, Italy with two medals in her luggage.
First on Friday, she was part of the Great Britain senior women’s tumbling team with Megan Kealy, Demi Adams and Jessica Brain who scooped silver in a pulsating team final and were only narrowly pipped to the gold by France.
Then, on Sunday, 23-year-old Surman, who is originally from Swansea and now trains out of the City of Birmingham club, capped a memorable first senior Europeans as she bagged bronze in the individual women’s final. It was also her first senior individual major championship medal.
The team qualified for Friday evening’s final after qualifying in second on the opening day of the competition last Wednesday, with their score of 151.000 seeing them progress behind France (152.300).
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Both Surman and Kealy also made sure of qualification for the individual women’s final, with reigning world champion Kealy qualifying in third place while two excellent passes from Surman saw her score 50.300 to go through in sixth.
Like with all team finals throughout the week, there were three rounds, with one GBR gymnast competing in each.
With five teams in the final, the team that finished in first place in each round would win five points for their country, second would take four points, third would win three points, fourth two points and fifth one point.
Kealy, was the first gymnast to compete and did so in the best way possible. A great pass saw her post the highest score of that group which resulted in the maximum five points.
Next to go was Demi Adams who is making her senior debut this week. Knowing that France were scoring well, Demi produced a fantastic pass to keep the pressure on, taking four points from her group.
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Last to go was Surman who used all of her experience to go clean through her pass whilst adding three points to the total to make sure of the silver medal
Surman said afterwards: “We knew it was going to be a tight final, and I was very nervous, but we knew we just had to go out and do our runs and let the scores look after themselves.”
The focus then turned towards the individual final on the final day of competition on Sunday.
Under the new code, the eight gymnasts in the final all compete one run, after which the top four then do a second run in ‘Final 2’ to decide the medals.
And Kealy went mighty close to adding the European title to the World title she won last November, scoring 26.100 after a near faultless pass that could only be beaten by Candy Briere-Vetillard from France (26.300).
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Surman, meanwhile, ensured she would also be on the podium as she scored 24.800 to take bronze.
“It feels really good to be coming home with an individual bronze,” said Surman.
“With the new competition format, my goal for the final was to try and make the top four and get through to Final 2. I didn’t expect to medal, so it feels great and I’m really happy to have completed both those runs.”
This was Surman’s second senior major championship appearance. Her first came in November last year at the 2021 Trampoline, Tumbling & DMT World Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan.
There she helped Great Britain’s women tumblers to team bronze while also placed fifth in the world in the individual women’s tumbling final – where team-mate Kealy secured a stunning gold.