Francesca Humphries has another British title under her belt at the age of 11.

The South-East Essex Gym Club, Basildon, member, having won the level three competition last year, found herself under pressure in the British Compulsory level two event in Liverpool from the beginning.

Despite a mistake on her last piece of apparatus, the beam, Francesca did enough to win the title by over one mark from the gymnast in second place.

Francesca scored 46.05 overall after totalling nine plus on four of the five pieces of apparatus. She excelled with a score of 9.675 on the range and conditioning exercise where the gymnasts perform a set routine needing strength, suppleness and great physical control.

Francesca is a member of the World Class Start programme where the best young gymnasts in the country are given the opportunity to train together on a regular basis.

South Essex's headquarters in Cranes Farm Road are one of only three high performance centres in England as part of the World Class programme, run by Sport England and British Gymnastics.

Also making the journey to Merseyside was Katie Walker, who was in the out of age level two compulsory competition (12 plus).

Katie also demonstrated exceptional skill in her range and conditioning exercise to score 9.6 (second highest score of the weekend). On the other four pieces of apparatus (vault, bars, beam and floor) Katie went through with no major errors and finished in second place with a score of 45.35.

Published Monday, March 25, 2002