By Sebastian Sternik
With the Vegas Acro Cup only days away, Normanton Sports Acro are going through their final preparations before heading out to the self-proclaimed Entertainment Capital of the World.
Although over 1000 gymnasts are expected to participate in this international competition, only two teams will be flying the flag for Britain; one of those being Normanton.
Speaking about the tournament, head coach Holly Rowney said: “It’s an international competition that we got invited to, through doing a different international competition in Italy.
“There’s just us and one other club from Richmond. There’s just us and them. But there are clubs literally from across the globe. Obviously the USA, Canada, South America, the rest of Europe, teams from Australia are even attending.
“It’s really exciting, it’s really good for us to be able to take a big team as well. Normally these events are just towards that sort of really high level, elite standard. Whereas we’ve got a lot of good gymnasts that are coming up through the ranks but they’re either not old enough or not quite experienced enough. This competition starts at a relatively low level and includes everybody.”
However, a trip of these proportions doesn’t organise itself and with no funding from British Gymnastics, the team have worked hard to try and raise enough funds in order for the club to attend the international extravaganza.
Rowney said: “All the kids set up ‘Go Fund Me’ pages, parents have been doing constant raffles, tombolas, football scratch cards. The kids have also been doing sponsored events and all sorts; they did a bag pack last week which was quite successful. Just anything really that can actually help out and put some money in the pot to help, to be able to afford and go.”
The Vegas Acro Cup is scheduled to be a four day competition, starting March 28th and concluding on April the 2nd. Normanton are set to take a squad of 19 gymnasts to the United States as they look to make their stay, a memorable one.