Welsh Gymnast Dylan Howells Returns Home With FOUR World Championship Medals

By Carl Field

Welsh acrobat Dylan Howells flew home from Baku, Azerbaijan, yesterday with FOUR World Championship medals safely tucked in his luggage.

The 21-year-old former Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhymni pupil, who hails from Risca, returned with the rest of the Great Britain delegation after a week to remember at the 2022 Acrobatic World Championships.

Howells, along with King Edmund GC partner Natasha Hutchinson, were competing in the mixed pair competition and delivered a quite stunning display across all four days of competition.

Having successfully qualified themselves in to all three finals, the pair won medals in each of those three finals – silver for balance and combined and bronze in the dynamic final.

Meanwhile they also helped Great Britain bag a team bronze medal.

Dylan Howells and Natasha Hutchinson in action in Baku.

“This really means a lot to us,” said Howells. “It was an incredible experience and we’re just so happy with the results.

“We’ve been practising really hard and it shows that all of our hard work over the past year has been worth it and finally put on show.

“We didn’t make it to the final at the World Championships last year so to make it to every single final this time – and to medal in each one of those finals – is quite something, so we’re really happy.”

Qualifying began in the early hours of Thursday morning and concluded on Friday morning with all of Britain’s gymnasts competing – Amani Egbor and Zoey Nok in the women’s pair event, Howells and Hutchinson in the mixed pair event and Bradley Gold, Andrew Morris-Hunt, Finlay Gray and Archie Collier in the men’s group event.

Howells and Hutchinson began qualification by posting a huge score of 28.590 for their balance routine for second place before returning on Friday morning to post a dynamic routine score of 28.490 for third place. Those scores also saw them progress to the combined final too.

Throughout qualifying, each pair and group score was added together, resulting in a fantastic team bronze, meaning each gymnast knew they would return home with a world medal from Baku ahead of a total of nine more finals to come over the course of the weekend.

Dylan Howells and Natasha Hutchinson with their World Championship medals. Pic: British Gymnastics.

The first of Howells and Hutchinson’s own three medals was silver and came in the combined final where they posted a superb score of 29.030.

In the balance final they also claimed silver, scoring 28.940 which had initially put them in gold medal position before the last routine of the final saw them move into second place.

Their dynamic routine was also a good one for which they scored 28.440 to secure another place on the podium with bronze.

This was the pair’s second Worlds after also competing at last year’s event in Switzerland, only narrowing missing out on a final. They followed that up with a bronze medal in the balance final at the 2021 Acrobatic Europeans Championships in Italy.

“Following the Europeans we were hoping to take that extra step up and, with three new routines, we managed to do so,” added Howells.

“The support from our families and friends has been great and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the coaches at King Edmund; coach Nikki and coach Vlad and all the coaches that helped us with choreography – we would not have been able to achieve this without them.

WOW! 🥉👏🇬🇧

Another Word medal for Dylan Howells and his partner Natasha Hutchinson in the Dynamic final.#DaIawn #ACROWorlds2022 https://t.co/jPbBq2xP4h

— Welsh Gymnastics (@WelshGymnastics) March 12, 2022

“And especially I’d like to thank Natasha, she’s shown true dedication to the sport and has come on leaps and bounds since joining last year.”

Howells and Hutchinson, who only teamed up at the beginning of last year, both train in Bristol with King Edmund GC – and they’ve certainly made their club proud.

Nikki Thorne, head coach at King Edmund, said: “Unbelievable talent, mixed with hard work, dedication, commitment and determination has helped this amazing partnership achieve what potential the coaching team knew they had.

“This level of commitment – and support from family – shows what can be achieved if everyone pulls in the same direction.”