Former international gymnast and circus acrobat opens new gym club in Buckingham

A successful Buckingham gymnastics club run by a former champion gymnast is making a fresh start for the new year, after expanding into new premises.

Lace Hill Gymnastics Club has been running classes at Lace Hill Sports and Community Centre since 2018, under head coach and director Anett Allsopp with her daughters Nicole and Bexy.

But the club had outgrown its existing premises, and with nearly 200 children on the waiting list and no more booking slots available at Lace Hill, it urgently needed to expand.

Following a lengthy planning application process, the club was finally granted permission for change of use of a small warehouse on Buckingham Industrial Estate, which is now up and running as the new venue.

Anett is a former international gymnast, originally from Hungary, who has lived in the UK since 1994, and her story is a fascinating one.

As a girl, she competed for Hungary from the ages of 12 to 16, being crowned Hungarian Floor Champion in 1989, until a knee injury forced her to retire early at the age of 17, missing out on the 1991 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Indianapolis.

Her younger sister Krisztina also competed in the national team for Hungary, making it to the Olympics in 1992. And their father, Imre Molnàr, was an Olympian gymnast who competed at the 1972 Munich and 1976 Montreal Games.

After retiring from competition, Anett became an aerial acrobat and in 1994 travelled to the UK to join Chipperfield’s Circus, touring many towns and cities and meeting her husband Shaun, a plasterer by trade who had joined the circus after seeing an advert for his dream job - looking after the elephants - in his local paper in Leicestershire.

The pair married and their first daughter, Nicole, was born in 1995. Anett went on to gain her coaching and professional qualifications in the UK and has has been coaching gymnastics and choreography ever since.

Her dream was to have her own club in a permanent venue, with classes for all ages and abilities. And on discovering that parents from Buckingham had to drive 20 or 30 minutes to take their children to their nearest club in Milton Keynes, she made up her mind to start a club in Buckingham.

With the new venue fully kitted out in time for the new year, Anett said: “Now we have a lovely family-run gymnastics club with qualified gymnastics coaches and assistants, a home for over 300 gymnasts who come weekly to enjoy their healthy regular exercise in a safe and friendly environment.”

Sadly, Anett’s father passed away three years ago, at the age of 70.

She said: “Our father was always our idol and greatest teacher. His teaching made us who we are now – appreciating hard work and life as it happens. I just wish he could have seen my gym club moving into this permanent venue.”

Lace Hill Gymnastics Club offers classes for all ages, including general gymnastics classes for children aged five to 16; Preschool Gymnastics for ages three and four; Structured Toddler classes with parental supervision; Pay and Play Toddler classes; SEN and Disability Gymnastics from toddlers to adults; and adult GymFit classes.