Delhi2010 – Gymnastics Gold for Mitchell and Little

WAIS-AIS gymnasts Lauren Mitchell and Emily Little helped Australia maintain its strangle hold over the Commonwealth, with the Perth pair guiding the Australian team to a fourth straight team gold last night.

The Aussie team however, needed to overcome a tumultuous start on beam, which included six falls before it got back on track to earn 163.70 points to claim gold ahead of England (158.20) and Canada (154.75).

Dual World Championship medallist Lauren Mitchell and WAIS training partner Emily Little qualified for the individual all-around final after returning scores of 56.95 and 53.60 respectively, which ranked them first and second after the team competition.

Mitchell’s class shone bright during a stunning floor routine which generated 14.250 points towards Australia’s total, whilst Little – a vault specialist – provided evidence of her pedigree with a wonderful display, execution and landing to earn 14.550 points.

The pair will be favoured to win individual medals in tonight’s all-around competition, whilst Mitchell has also earned starts in the apparatus finals for balance beam, un-even bars and floor.

With the World Championships to be held in Rotterdam, Holland next week, national coach Peggy Liddick admitted to media, her disbelief at the Australian teams’ shaky start on beam.

“I think we were in shock,” Liddick said. “We all looked at each other and said, ‘What happened? What planet are we on?'”

“We got that shock out of our system and then everything went back to normal,” Liddick said. “It was a good valuable lesson for them and thank God it wasn’t next week at the world championships.”