MAG British Championships 2025

M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool - 20th- 23rd March

Eight of Woking’s Men’s Artistic gymnasts competed in the British Championships, the biggest event in the domestic calendar.

Thursday began with Ben Porter, Jay Coote, and Max Veo-Creek in the U16 competition. It was a tough day at the office with lots to learn from. Max was pleased with his P-bars, and Jay performed a clean rings routine. After missing the English Championships through injury, this was Ben’s first competition of the year. He performed his simplified routines well and, despite errors on P-bar and H-bar, Ben finished 6th AA and 2nd on Rings.

Max Griffiths and Fionn Kelly were competing on podium for the first time. After a torrid time on pommels, Fionn recovered well to finish 60th AA. Mac rose to the occasion and performed some beautiful routines, only falling on his last apparatus, the vault. He can be proud of his 26th place finish.

The arena filled with anticipation for Saturday's competition. Oli Porter and Luke Everett represented Woking in the U18 competition. Luke had an up-and-down day, finishing 29th AA. Oli started the comp well but was hampered by falls on H-bar, floor, and pommels. He was able to refocus and finished the competition with a near-perfect rings routine to be crowned British rings champion.

After his success at the English Championships, expectations of Jamie Lewis were high. Starting on pommels, he performed his difficult routine cleanly to score 13.95. A clean Rings followed to put him top of the all-around standings after 2 apparatus. Despite an uncharacteristic error on the vault and a scruffy P-bars, he held on to top spot going into the final two apparatus. A world-class H-bar routine scoring 13.65 extended his lead with just Floor to go. The rest of the competitors had finished, and all eyes in a packed M&S Arena were set upon Jamie. A former European Junior Floor champion, he showed his class, sticking landing after landing and wowing the crowds with his impressive flair sequence. As he joined his heels and saluted the judges after his full twisting double back dismount, everyone knew it was enough to secure the title. The scoreboard read 80.20, and officially Jamie Lewis was crowned the 2025 Senior Men’s British Champion.

Celebrations of Saturday’s success were lowkey as there was still work to be done on Sunday. Woking had qualified seven spots in the apparatus finals and so began a busy day. First up was Jamie in the senior floor final; a few steps on landings proved costly as he finished in 4th with Olympian and two-time European champion, Luke Whitehouse taking the top spot. Next, the pommels; having qualified in second, Jamie knew he had to up his game to challenge for the title and he did just that. Improving on his qualification score and posting a 14.25, Jamie was crowned the Pommel horse champion. In the Rings final, Jamie again delivered, taking third place. In the Junior rings final, Woking had two representatives. Oli and Ben Porter were set to go head-to-head to compete against each other for the first time. Ben went up first, a little shaky in his first ever British apparatus final, he landed in 8th spot. Oli had been here before, missing out on a medal by just 0.1 last year. This year, he left the judges with no choice but to award him the gold medal for his near-flawless performance. A score of 12.6 saw him crowned the Junior Masters Rings champion. Buoyed by this success, Oli performed in the P-Bar final. He executed his complex routine well, improving on his qualification score and winning the silver medal. The last final of a busy week was the H-bar final. Historically, Jamie has not had the best relationship with H-Bar. In 2016, he was told his bar routine was not good enough and he was not allowed to perform it at the Junior Europeans. In 2018, a fall from the bar cost him the AA title at the junior Europeans. And it was on the horizontal bar where Jamie injured his hand, an injury that required surgery and caused him to miss all of last year. None of this fazed him. Jamie delivered a beautiful routine containing high-flying release moves and complex in-bar work. Nailing the dismount, he scored 13.7 - the highest score by a British gymnast under the new rules, and his third British title of the weekend.

Full results and competition videos are available on the British Gymnastics website