Grant Golding leads Canadian s Commenwealth Team

Grant Golding, will make his third Games...!

The XVIII. Commenwealth Games 2006' will held from March 15 - 26 in Mebourne, Australia. The gymnastics competitons will take place at the Rod Laver Arena, the venue of the last artistic worlds last year.
The Canadian Men’s Artistic Team, which took home silver in the team event in Manchester, will aim to better its efforts in Melbourne and knock off the strong British team and all other challengers to claim prime position on the medal podium....

The five member team includes four gymnasts from Calgary, led by Grant Golding, who will make his third Games appearance after finishing first in the All Round competition at the Commonwealth Games team trials.
Golding’s two-day total score of 177.40 points edged out Nathan Gafuik of Calgary, who came second with 176.20. Adam Wong of Calgary fills the third slot at 174.70 and David Kikuchi of Halifax came in fourth at 173.00.

Olympic Champion 2004, Kylie Shefelt

Olympic champion Kyle Shewfelt of Calgary will have a chance to defend his two gold medal wins from Manchester, grabbing the fifth spot on the team for his outstanding performances on Floor and Vault and also posting the second best score on High Bar.
Men’s high performance director for Gymnastics Canada Gymnastique, Jeff Thomson said the team for Melbourne looked extremely strong.
'The guys didn’t miss anything,' he said. 'There’s a lot of experience and the younger guys like Nathan and Adam showed once again they belonged to compete alongside the very best.'

And in the Women’s Artistic trials, Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs completed her first All Round competition since October and placed first.
Hopfner-Hibbs, who enjoyed a breakthrough season internationally by finishing 10th on Bars at the 2005 World Championships before suffering from an injury late in the year which left her unable to complete her floor routine, placed first in the Trials rankings with 71.050 points.

Alyssa Brown (CAN)
Photo: gymnet.org

Alyssa Brown was second at 68.700, while Gael Mackie was third, ahead of Brittney Habbib and Jenna Kerbis, with all five earning a nomination to the team.
'It feels great to make the team,' Hopfner-Hibbs said. 'I’ve worked really hard especially with the new code of points. It’s not so much the new code is challenging but we were interested to see how it would all play out.'

Brown (< photo, left), who finished second, was tied with Hopfner-Hibbs after the opening round of competition, and said the Games was a big step forward. 'Except for the beam, my second day was a lot better and I was really pleased to see my vault routine go so well,' she said. 'We don’t have any major events until the Games so there’s some time to fine tune our routines.' Gymnastics will kick off at the Rod Laver Arena with competition in the team Artistic events from 16 – 18 March, before apparatus finals on 20 – 21 March.
Source: Commenwealth Games 2006