Little Wins All-Around and Vault Titles at Aus Champs

Emily Little has won the All-Around and Vault national titles at the 2017 Australian Gymnastics Championships in Melbourne continuing a bright year for the 23 year-old.

The All-Around success ended a long-wait for the West Aussie – who has been a perennial contender for the title – without ever having taken top spot.

Having qualified second for the final, Little carried over 52.825 points and improved her performances on three of the four disciplines to claim gold ahead of Victoria’s Georgia-Rose Brown.

Little’s aggregate of 106.750 narrowly edged out her national teammate’s total of 106.400 with the pair likely to feature prominently in Australia’s team to tackle the 2017 world championships in Canada next October.

Little was once again peerless on Vault, but upgraded from her qualifying scores on Bars (12.750), Beam (13.150) and Floor (13.375) to earn the elusive title which reinforced her status as one of the country’s elite gymnastics talents.

In victory, Little was magnanimous – praising the efforts of her colleague Brown.

“Georgia-Rose is looking really good at the moment, you can tell she’s put in a lot of hard work so to finish just above her is great,” Little said.

“I was coming second after the qualifiers – after a mistake on Beam – and I was pretty confident if I just stuck all my performances in the final, I was a good chance to finally win gold.”

Little’s state teammates Aya Meggs (95.725) and Niamh Collins (90.575) finished 10th and 12th respectively, helping Western Australia to a Team silver medal behind champions Victoria.

In the apparatus finals, Little added another title on Vault – scoring 14.325 for gold ahead of Victoria’s Amie Martin (12.750) and New South Wales’ Cassidy Ercole (12.525).

She also took home bronze on Bars behind national champion Rianna Mizzen of Queensland.