The Herts county gymnastics team have won the annual Eastern Region level three inter-county team competition for the first time. The team is selected from members of the Herts county squad. It was made up of three gymnasts from the Marriotts club in Stev

The Herts county gymnastics team have won the annual Eastern Region level three inter-county team competition for the first time.

The team is selected from members of the Herts county squad.

It was made up of three gymnasts from the Marriotts club in Stevenage and three from the Sapphire club in Hemel Hempstead.

Team members were Maddison Maranian, Lauren Doherty and Katie Bell from Marriotts, and Yvette Gungadoo, Abby Buttle and Jessica Sullivan (reserve) from Sapphire.

The competition was held on Saturday at the Ipswich Gymnastics Centre.

Herts were clear winners (141.6), with Suffolk second (136.5), Cambridgeshire third and Essex in fourth place.

In recent years, Herts have been up in the medals but the gold medal position has proved elusive.

The team was made up of five competing gymnasts, with four gymnasts chosen to compete on each piece of apparatus and the top three scores on each piece going to the final team score. This competition is judged according to level three rules.

All the gymnasts put in excellent performances and all contributed to the team score.

Maranian put in good scoring performances on the vault and beam; Doherty put in scoring performances on vault, bars and floor, including the highest floor score of the competition.

Bell competed on all four pieces of apparatus and scored the highest overall mark of the competition as well as top score on beam. All of her scores counted towards the team score.

Coaches Svetlana Lebiadzinskaya (Marriotts) and Annie Echlin (county coach, Sapphire) were delighted with the success and the way in which all of the gymnasts, usually in competition with one another, worked so well together.