Geraldine Sidders has left a good impression on the coaching staff after making her debut at the Junior World Wushu Championships in Tianjin, China.

The promising athlete placed 32nd in the Girls Gunshu (staff) and 21st in the Girls Changquan (longfist), much to the satisfaction of head coach and Bermuda Sanshou Association president Garon Wilkinson.

“Overall as head coach of the team, I was pleased with certain elements of her routine that I felt were strong,” he told The Royal Gazette. Even her overseas coaches complimented her on the rhythm of her routine, which is a key element of wushu, taolu.

“This was a great competition and very well organised. It feels like a real world championship in just the packaging of the championships and I am grateful for the opportunity and happy with Geraldine’s performance.”

Although he was happ with the Warwick Academy student’s showing, Wilkinson has identified some areas where improvement is needed moving forward.

“A number of deductions were from moves that I know she can do much better, so in terms of deductions a bit disappointed,” he said. “I feel that overall her staff routine was closer to my expectations, but in competition you have to be spot-on on the day.

“So while there were improvements in areas where she wasn’t so strong, I felt that she could’ve done better in areas that she’s been strong at all along.

“But at this level it comes with being able to compete under stress conditions more at a high level, and she’s still very new group A, which is for ages 15 to 17.

“She’s been performing these routines for only a few months so considering that she has almost a full three years to be competing with these same routines we’re obviously going to see lots of improvements.

“Her deductions were actually coming across both her staff as well as her longfist routines, and so we know the areas that we need to work on. Just through correcting those areas we can pick up a whole additional point, so we have our work to do.”