British squad invite for Jordan

16 February 2010

sports:

Gymnastics

Dundee gymnast Jordan Archibald is heading towards her goal of competing in the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games after being invited to train with the British squad this month.

“The GB squad head coach Adrian Stan spoke to my coach and asked me to go and train alongside the squad at Lillieshall because of my results at the British Championships last year,” said Jordan, who had reached the beam final, just missed out on a place in the vault final, and finished in the top six in her age group, the under 13s.

“We trained for four days and I followed their programme. It was pretty similar to the way I train in Scotland but they did more numbers; like if we do three at home they do four.

“On vault there isn’t much of a gap at all between me and them, on beam there was a wee bit.”

Fourteen year old Jordan was introduced to the sport by her mother, a gymnastics coach and sports development officer. Coached by Bea Peterson at her club, DGC2K, she has won Celtic Cup and Scottish titles.

Supporting her for the past two years is Scottish Gymnastics and the Tayside & Fife Institute of Sport, part of the sportscotland institute of sport regional network which provides high performance expertise to Scotland’s potential world class talent.

“When Scottish Gymnastics, my coach and I had the original meeting with the institute we agreed I needed more leg strength so I started a Strength & Conditioning programme,” she said.

“As a result it’s really been noticed that my strength has improved, particularly in my jumping and posture in general. On one of the leg exercises I have almost doubled the numbers I was able to do in a minute from when I started.

“Last year I had a tough year, with quite a few injuries, especially because I was growing and the physio they gave was a great help.”

This year Jordan moves up to an age group to compete with the under 15s. Her first major event of the year will be next weekend’s Scottish Championships, followed soon after by the Celtic Cup in Wales. Her main focus for the year is the British Championships this summer.

Too young to compete in this autumn’s Delhi Commonwealth Games, the long term focus is far closer to home.

 “Glasgow in 2014 is a big goal for me,” she added. “I would be 19 then and having a Games in your own country is a big attraction.”