A Gymnastics club from Huddersfield are getting ready to represent Britain on the world stage as they form part of the largest ever team to perform at the biggest celebration of the sport on the planet later this month.

Pennine Gymnastics Club, based just south of the town in Honley, are sending a team of 12 gymnasts to the World Gymnaestrada in Amsterdam.

They will join over 20,000 participants from 50 other nations to create a spectacular festival of gymnastics.

Lead coach Elle Stokes, 23, said: “It’s so exciting for them. They’re not competitive gymnasts, they’ve never done any big trips through gymnastics like this before.

“We’re really excited that Gymnaestrada gives us the opportunity to go in a non-competitive way and put our display on.

“When we started up our display team, we just started researching all the different events that we could participate in, and this just seemed to be the biggest and most exciting one we could find.

“We’ve done lots of research into what it’s all about, watched videos of previous years, but we’re really excited to see what it’s actually like when we’re there. We’re hoping it’s a really amazing week for the gymnasts.”

First staged in 1953, the World Gymnaestrada is a non-competitive and inclusive event held every four years that celebrates the joy of the sport, reflecting the new vision launched earlier this year for gymnastics in the UK to deliver an uplifting experience for all. 

The event is open to everybody, regardless of gender, age, race, religion, culture, or ability or disability. 

The 2023 edition will see participants wow the crowds with gymnastics displays in locations across the Dutch capital between 30 July – 5 August. 

Pennine Gymnastics will perform up to five times throughout the week, including forming part of a mass group ‘Great Britain’ team performance alongside the other 30 British clubs in attendance. 

The focus on providing an enjoyable and memorable experience for participants and the audience alike is what is at the heart of the World Gymnaestrada, and why this year British Gymnastics is supporting a record number of gymnasts to take part.

Stokes added: “In the grand scheme of things we’re quite a new club, we’ve been going less than ten years.

“It’s a really big thing for our club, we’ve never done anything like this. It’s completely new for all of us and it’s very exciting.

“We are quite a newly formed display team, so we only started once lockdown ended. We just wanted to have something big for the team to work towards after little displays around the country.

“We wanted them to have something really impressive to work towards.”

British Gymnastics will be bringing the joy and celebration of the World Gymnaestrada experience to life across its digital channels throughout the event, and you can read more about the new vision for gymnastics in the UK to deliver an uplifting experience for all at www.british-gymnastics.org/vision