Essendon Keilor Gym Academy hosted its own invitational on 29 August, drawing seven clubs across Levels 3 to 7. It was a day for fine margins at the very top of a couple of fields, and for a few clubs whose team placing undersold just how well they were scoring on individual apparatus.
TEAM SCORES DON'T TELL THE WHOLE STORY IN LEVELS 3 AND 4
LFK won Level 3 Division 2 outright, 108.675 to EKGA's 106.625 in a two-team field, and won again in Division 3 on 105.425. Ballarat entered two squads in that Division 3 field of eight, Red finishing seventh (97.275) and Blue eighth (95.75), but Ballarat Blue's 25.875 on bars was the fifth-best in the whole division, a few places better than their overall finish suggests.
Level 4 Division 2 saw the host club sweep the podium, EKGA's Silver, White and Black squads taking first through third, with LFK fourth in the four-team field. LFK's consolation was a good one all the same, a cheeky silver medal on bars, second only to EKGA Silver and ahead of both other EKGA squads.
Athleta won Level 4 Division 3 outright, 100.125 to Werribee's 99.325, but there was a genuine nail-biter buried further down the field too. Ballarat Red's fifth place overall (95.65) came with third-place finishes on both beam and floor. Ballarat Blue finished eighth, but the fight for seventh, decided on beam, came down to just 0.05 of a point. Fishermens Bend's two squads told a similar story: Silver's fourth-place finish (95.675) came with silver on vault, and Blue, sixth overall (95.475), matched it with silver on bars. Melton's own Gliders squad, third overall in the same division, added third on vault and bars plus a silver on beam, per the club's recap.
ZAJAC HOLDS OFF BARATTA BY THE SLIMMEST OF MARGINS
In Level 5 Division 2, tied with Level 5 Division 3 as the day's biggest field at twenty-two gymnasts, LFK's Thalia Zajac held on for gold by 0.015, 36.125 to 36.11, over Melton's Zoe Baratta. Zajac's 36.125 matched her own best score at the level this season. Baratta's effort was arguably the more eye-catching of the two, given it came in her return to Division 2 after a year competing in Division 3, where her previous best was 35.2. Stepping back up a division and finishing a whisker from gold is a serious statement. LFK's Anna Kam rounded out the placings with bronze on 36.025, giving LFK two of the top three.
LFK Yellow made no mistake in the team event, winning Level 5 Division 2 outright on 108.125, ahead of EKGA in second (104.725), and topped both beam and floor along the way. Further down that same team table, the final placings didn't tell the full story. LFK Blue finished fifth of six overall but still walked away with bronze on beam (25.825), and Ballarat, sixth overall, took silver on floor (26.175), second only to LFK Yellow in the field. Both squads mixing it with the top of the section on their best apparatus is a good sign for either heading into the rest of the season.
Ballarat Gymsports went one better in Level 5 Division 3, holding off Werribee 99.5 to 99.375, a margin of just 0.125, for the division's team title.
Level 5 Division 3, Team
| # | Team | VT | UB | BB | FX | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ballarat | 26.450 | 23.700 | 24.950 | 24.400 | 99.500 |
| 2 | Werribee | 26.750 | 22.375 | 24.425 | 25.825 | 99.375 |
| 3 | GUN Blue | 24.850 | 23.875 | 25.250 | 24.350 | 98.325 |
| 4 | GUN Red | 26.150 | 20.750 | 24.850 | 24.500 | 96.250 |
| 5 | Athleta | 24.350 | 22.175 | 24.450 | 23.950 | 94.925 |
| 6 | MGA Springers | 21.850 | 18.700 | 21.300 | 17.925 | 79.775 |
The Division 2 field ran deep, and a few gymnasts were finding their feet in tougher company. Besides Baratta's step up, Melton's Olivia Cowie also made her first Division 2 start of the season after a year in Division 3. LFK's Chloe Frodsham picked up a few places on bars relative to her overall finish too. Good signs for both to carry forward.
BALLARAT GYMSPORTS MAKES IT TWO IN LEVEL 6
Ballarat Gymsports backed up its Level 5 Division 3 team title with another in Level 6 Division 3, 98.25 to Werribee Silver's 95.9. In the all-around, Ballarat's Lila Illingworth took gold on 33.675, her best score at the level so far this season, her third competition in a row with a higher score than the last (32.825, then 33.349, then this). Clubmate Hayley Gilbert claimed silver on 32.975, but it was closer than the gap to gold suggests, with Werribee's Zoe Harmer just 0.075 back in bronze, one of the tightest podium margins of the competition. Gilbert's day was better than her all-around finish suggested, too, topping the entire division outright on both bars and beam. Melton had its say in the same division: Eden Leheny won vault gold, and Kayla Bryant took silver on beam, both called out on the club's own post-comp wrap-up.
Level 6 Division 2 was a four-way field, won by LFK's Mia Dunne on 33.875, ahead of EKGA's Sophie Mlakar and Melton's Delnia Darabi, who backed up bronze overall with an outright win on beam, also flagged in Melton's recap.
GLUSCHENKO CAPS OFF A STRONG SEASON IN LEVEL 7
EKGA's Harriet Gluschenko won Level 7 Division 2 on 44.7, her best all-around score of the 2026 season by a couple of points clear of her previous high. She shared vault gold with Gymnastics Unlimited's Ariana Thurston, both scoring 11.55, and won floor outright. Clubmate Kayla Nadzielski was second overall and won bars in her own right, with Sienna Caputa third, just 0.1 ahead of Thurston in fourth, about as tight as bronze gets. EKGA's own post afterwards put it simply: "Double podium for our teams and medals everywhere." Fittingly, EKGA's Silver team took the Level 7 Division 2 team title too, with EKGA Black second. In Division 1, Gymnastics Unlimited's Lelaina Endres-Wico was the field's only entrant and made the most of the solo outing, posting 44.4.
Level 5 Division 2 came down to 0.015 of a point, and the Level 6 Division 3 podium was settled by 0.075. Margins that fine are a good reminder that a placing on the day is a snapshot, not the last word on the work going into every week of training behind it.
Full results from the 2026 EKGA Invitational are up on the results page.
