Sydney Mason executed her first ever double back on the floor in front of a packed house in last night’s individual qualifiers at the Toronto Coliseum.

The 17-year-old finished 27th out of 54 competitors, scoring 12.800 in the vault, 9.150 in the uneven bars, 10.100 in the beam and 11.200 in the floor routine.

Her total score of 43.250 has placed her as one of three reserves for tonight’s all-around final, which Duke Nelligan, the Bermuda head coach, described as a “real accomplishment”.

He said: “Sydney should be very proud of herself. This was a significant competition and we put a few new things in her routine.

“She did her first ever double back on the floor in competition and managed to stand it up, which was great.

“I think she will come away from this knowing that she could have gone harder and not held back, and that’s an important lesson.”

Mason, who was competing on the biggest stage of her life, echoed Nelligan’s sentiments regarding removing the shackles from her routine.

“I did everything I trained for and I’m excited about how it went,” the Bermuda High School pupil said.

“There were actually more people here than I’ve seen before in one place!

“I was a little bit nervous to start with, but the big crowd definitely helped me. It was really fun.

“I definitely feel I could have been more forceful on beam and shown a little more consistency on bars.”

Mason did not qualify for any of the event finals — vault, uneven bars, beam and floor — but could be called into action tonight should a gymnast pull out.

“I would definitely advise the younger gymnasts back in Bermuda to aim for the Pan Am Games,” Mason said. “It’s one of the biggest competitions to compete in.

“I’ve trained extremely hard for this and it’s been a long couple of months, but it’s definitely been worth it.”

n Bermuda sailors Cecilia Wollmann and Cameron Pimentel were only able to complete one race yesterday because of lack of wind in Toronto Harbour.

Wollmann finished eleventh in her opening race of the Laser Radials, while Pimentel placed fifteenth in the Lasers.

Sailing was abandoned in the afternoon before the second races in each class could get under way.