To round off the year BBC Wiltshire Sport spoke to Jessica about 2003 and her thoughts on 2004. Read the article, "A year in the life of a Wiltshire gymnast", on the BBC's web site.

Another year has flown past, and once again we were back at the Guildford Spectrum to enjoy wonderful displays of gymnastics on Saturday and Sunday 8/9 November as we watched the 9, 10 and 11 year age groups for the second and final rounds of the 2003 British Age Groups Championships.

On Saturday about 80 level 4 and 3 gymnasts entertained us. It was a long day, not finishing until about 20:00, but great to watch. It brought back memories of what seems like years ago, though not so nerve-wracking!

Jessica and the other level 2s brought the event to its climax on the Sunday. 40 gymnasts, 2 rounds and, once again those 1992 babies “wowed” the audience. There were also a number of “oohes” and “ouches” as some of the big skills did not come off.

After a two-minute silence for Remembrance Sunday the first round saw, among others, Becky Downie, Laura Jones and Felicity Morris from East Midlands battling it out with Rebecca Wing from South. Lots of big skills but lots of falls as well. Rebecca Wing’s floor routine was particularly impressive.

Jessica and club mates Shannon and Jessa, along with Michaela from Easton in Bristol competed in round 2.  Despite having to compete reduced skill levels having picked up an injury during podium training Jessica was one of the only top-10 gymnasts to go clean on all four pieces. She finished the day in 5^th place - in the circumstances a good result.

November is of course about crowning the overall British Champion by combining the day's scores with those from the compulsories in Liverpool in March. Jessica just missed a medal coming 0.16 behind Shannon to finish a credible 4^th. So close yet so far…

Jessica and her South West team took bronze in the team competition behind South (gold) and East Midlands (silver).

Well done to Jessica and all of the gymnasts who took part over the two days. But a special word of thanks to Jessica’s coach and her team for their hard work over the past year.

Take a look at the BBC's article the BBC Wiltshire Sport page and the local paper's feature on their web site as well.

The British Gymnastics.Net has once again published a full and detailed report covering Jessica's and the other top girls' performances on the day.

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Jessica was once again one of the 11 World Class Start gymnasts selected to represent their country. This time she travelled to the National Sports Centre for gymnastics in Tata, Hungary. The squad flew out to Hungary for the 10-day International Training Camp on 10 October and returned on 19 October.

See the report on the BG site and Jessica's pictures on the me on me page.

Rachel Levick takes up the reins at WSG

After the surprise news of last week it was great to learn that Rachel, who has been working with Jessica for some time now, will be Jessica's new coach. We welcome her into her new role and wish this new coach/gymnast partnership every success. Rachel and Jessica will of course continue to work closely with the WSG coaching team as a whole.

While it is sad to see Tracey Skirton go, we respect her decision and wish her well in her new job. We would like to thank her for all her hard work with Jessica over the last 3 years. She will be missed.

Unfortunately we today learned that Tracey Skirton is resigning as Director of Coaching at Jessica's club to pursue her ambitions in Wales. It is with regret that we see her go, leaving 7 of the best gymnasts in the country, all on the World Class Programmes, without their International Performance Coach with whom they have worked for a number of years and wish all of those gymnasts the very best for the future.

The final June competition was on 29 June on home turf. The Wiltshire Levels is a small but never the less important competition which pits three of the best 1992 gymnasts against one another. Namely Jessica, Shannon Morse and Jessa Powell.

As usual we saw a good tussle for first place. After three pieces Jessica and Shannon were level pegging but on floor Jessica stumbled on her 2 1/2 twist allowing Shannon to squeeze into the lead by 0.25.

Well done girls!

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2003 is the first year that Jessica's club has participated in the Bill Slater Cup Team Championships. This great competition in Newcastle brought together 27 clubs from all over the country and although our team was on the "young side of young" they are all members of World Class and National Squads; Jessica (Under-12 Squad), Sam Bayley (Junior and Olympic Squad), Hannah Wickens (Junior Squad), Jasmine Dyer (Espoire Squad), Jessa Powell (Under-12 Squad) and Leanna Clarke (Under-12 Squad).

The competition took place over 2 days and comprised 6 rounds. WSG competed on day 1 in round 3. At the end of the first day things could not have been better with WSG in first place hotly pursued by Sapphire in second and Notts in third. But this meant we would have to sit through the agony of three more rounds on the second day before we know our ultimate fate.

As each round unfolded we eagerly awaited the scores. Round 4, still in first place; round 5, still in first place and the tension grew. Only Newcastle 'A', Bristol Hawks, South Durham and Pipers Vale to go. Up went the scores one by one, but where did we lie? 3 rotations were posted but infuriatingly the final scores did not appear. We knew it was between Bristol, WSG and Newcastle but we would have to speculate what Bristol might have scored on vault and what Newcastle had scored on beam. Finally we were put out of our misery; pipped to the post by Newcastle but still ahead of Bristol! (This was changed to bronze by British Gymnastics on 14 July when they published revised results to correct a scoring error) A great result for a great young team - the oldest member just 15.

Here's what the BBC Wiltshire Sport website had to say.

And here's what the local paper reported.

Have a look at the picture gallery for new photos from this and other recent events.

Well done to the whole team and their coaches who worked so hard to achieve this great result.

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Sunday 23 March saw Jessica and her South West team in action at the British Schools Championships in Newcastle.

Not the best competition for Jessica, with a fall on beam and problems with the remainder of her beam routine bringing her home a disappointing 20th. Until beam the day had gone well with her first public airing of Endo on high bar after Stalder on low bar ending with an absolutely nailed double-back dismount. Floor was, as usual, elegant and clean with an uncharacteristic small step on vault. The competition was tough with only 1 point between Jessica and 6th place. In such circumstances a clean competition is a must! At the end of the day South West team came home with Silver just behind North West and ahead of East Midlands, so not all bad!

For an unbiased and technical view take a look at The British Gymnastics Net fantastic write up of the Juniors' competition. It really does reflect the atmosphere and outcome on the day. What more can I say! 

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Saturday 15 March was Jessica’s first major event of the year and we all trekked northwards to Liverpool for the British Level 2 Compulsory Championships. 39 gymnasts had registered to compete though on the day only 30 took part.

The standard of this year group is fantastic with any of the top 7 or 8 capable of taking the title on the day. You only have to read the commentaries on some of the other gymnastics web sites to see what the gym world thinks of them.

The event was, as we have come to expect, extremely well organised and run with the girls split into two rounds. Jessica and her club mates Shannon Morse and Jessa Powell competed in the first round with the other top-guns competing in round two. This meant that the top two gymnasts from 2002 set the standard for those competing later to chase – and chase it they certainly did!

If I have one observation to make it would be that it is a shame that the top 10 gymnasts were split between the two rounds. Personally I think it would have been an even more nail biting and intriguing spectacle had all of the best gymnasts in this age group been in the arena at the same time. This is especially so given that some of the groups in the second round had only 2 gymnasts in them. Be that as it may, the display of gymnastics was fabulous!

Anyway Jessica had a fantastic competition; clean and scoring well into the ‘9s’ on all pieces. Only the top 5 achieved 9 plus on every piece. On bars Jessica was the only top gymnast to elect for a Stalder rather than clear and performed her whole routine with ease and elegance. Performing with confidence she nailed her landings on bars, vault and beam and landed all of her tumbles on floor well. At the end of the competition Jessica of course passed her Elite Grade and was one of only 5 gymnasts to score more than 46. Despite this she finished 5^th – an achievement she can be proud of given the ability and performance on the day of those who took the medals.

Club mate Shannon Morse came home 3^rd with Jessa Powell finishing 7^th, showing that our club really is up there with the stars of tomorrow. A big ‘well done’ to Jessica and everyone else who competed, especially the top 10. The future of British Gymnastics is in good hands if this year group continues to develop as it has to date.

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Jessica has been reselected onto the World Class Start programme and the British Under-12 Squad. She is one of the total of 7 gymnasts from her club, the Wiltshire School of Gymnastics, selected onto the World Class Programmes and the National Squads. 4 gymnasts are in the Under-12 Squad, 1 in the Espoire (12 and 13 year olds), 1 in the Junior Squad (14 and 15 year olds) and one currently in the Junior Squad has also selected for the 2004 Olympic Squad.

Swindon's Evening Advertiser picked up on this club and individual success story and sang their praises in the newspaper and on their website on 11 February. This is great news for all 7 gymnasts and for the club - well done! Take a look, it's a good read!

Jessica was one of 11 World Class Start gymnasts selected to represent their country at the very hub of Romanian gymnastics in Deva, Romania. The squad flew out to Romania for the 10-day International Training Camp on 13 January and will return on 22 January.

The BBC covered both Jessica and club mate Hannah Wickens selection for the Squad on their website.

Swindon's Evening Advertiser reports on the Transylvanian training camp in the newspaper and on the web.