Breakthrough for Harry in Quebec
The annual Mondial AcrobatX Festival of aerials at the water-ramp at Lac Beauport was a resounding success with an outstanding level of aerials from teams from Canada, USA, Australia, Ukraine, Russia, Japan and Britain. Despite several of the Canadian champions being absent due to injury the event was a showcase for the highest level of aerials in the World, and gave some of the upcoming stars a chance to reach for the podium.
The ongoing friendly rivalry between British teammates Harry Gillam and Lloyd Wallace continues to push their abilities higher and higher. Harry trains in Utah, USA and this summer he has taken the big step up to triple somersaults. His solid lay tuck full has a degree of difficulty (DD) of 3.5, about the same as Lloyd’s triple twisting double, the double-full full at 3.525. Harry travelled to Switzerland to unleash his new triple, the lay full full, DD of 3.8. Unbeknown to Harry, Lloyd had been working on the ridiculous double-full double-full, a double somersault with four twists which has a DD of 3.9. One week later the boys met up again at the Mondial event in Quebec and Harry managed to trump the DD score with a lay double-full full, a triple twisting triple with a DD of 4.175. He jumped it neatly in the first qualification round and placed 6th, meaning he jumped the second qualification round and was directly into the top 12 of the final.
He performed the same jump even better in the 1st round of finals scoring a personal best of 108.86, finishing that round in 4th place. Competitors are required to do a different jump at every round of finals and this was no time for Harry to lower his jump difficulty as anything less would be unlikely to make the top 4, so he made the snap decision to attempt the fiendish lay full double-full with a DD of 4.275. It was a brave attempt and Harry put it to his feet, but a slight misjudgment in the timing of the twists meant the score wasn’t sufficient to move above 8th, but still a highly successful result and Harry certainly gained experience and respect.
It was certainly a worthwhile and fun trip for all the athletes. From a British perspective it is great to show that despite having no funding and little support they can still compete successfully alongside very well funded teams like USA, Canada, Russia Ukraine and Australia who travel with managers, coaches, assistant coaches, physios and doctors. Imagine how well we could do with a bit more support!