Bermuda's top young gymnasts were so excited by their recent win at the Gym-Beez Invitational in Pennsylvania they wanted to buy an extra seat on the plane home to strap the 42-inch tall trophy in next to them, their manager has revealed.

Jose Francioni said: "They were so proud of the trophy they would not allow it to be packed away into the luggage compartment on the plane home. "They wanted to pay for an extra seat so they could strap it in next to them.

Luckily, it fitted into the overhead bagagge compartment.'' A strong all-round team performance by Maria Darby, Christina White, Leila Wadson, Alex Francioni, Sasha Christensen and Shauntiah Rawlins was enough to take the honours in a competition which earned them their first meet triumph -- and left them oozing with confidence as they look forward to the third Bermuda Triangle Challenge at the end of this month.

The meet will give the girls a chance to show Islanders the form which earned the team its first meet win at the Gym-Beez Invitational in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, last weekend.

More than 100 gymnasts from seven United States gyms, will provide the opposition at the Southampton Princess Hotel, on February 26 to 28.

Meanwhile, the Gym-Beez trophy will find a permanent home in a cabinet to be built specially to house it at the team's east-end base, Toad's Gym.

The silverware is a symbol of the team's progress under coach Walid Mustafa in a past year which has seen them compete at the Commonwealth and CAC Games.

And Froncioni was keen to point out that success had only come through hard work.

"Up until three years ago we did not have a gym of our own to go to on a daily basis. We had to rent the gymnasium at the Whitney Institute,'' she said.

"The parents had to put out all the equipment themselves -- the floor, the vaults, the bars, the beams. And we had to put it away again when they had finished.'' Moving equipment used up about 70 minutes every session, so when the team managed to find a home at Toad's Gym three years ago, where the gear could be left out, it enabled coach Mustafa and the team to devote more time to training.

Mustafa said: "We were losing about six or seven weeks of training time in moving equipment in a year -- that can make a big difference.'' Mustafa has been the Bermuda Gymnastic Association's full-time coach for five years and has initiated a programme to make what is sometimes seen as an exclusive sport more attractive to all youngsters. Around 250 children are now involved.

He felt that last October's installation of a `pit' at Toad's Gym, 32 feet long by eight feet wide and filled with foam cubes, had been a boost.

"It helps the kids to learn new skills, because they can walk on the bar above the pit without fear of landing on the hard floor,'' said Mustafa.

The coach was thrilled with the girl's Gym-Beez triumph, but hardly surprised.

"This was the first meet we had travelled to that we were only up against our peers and not one of the big eight gyms in the USA. When they are there, they always win, because their facilities are so far ahead of the rest. "I was very pleased with them. All the girls performed well. They stayed calm because they are used to higher pressure meets.'' Rowan Hallett will be added to the six who won the Gym-Beez to make up the team for the Triangle Challenge.

The Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, in July and August, is the big international event for the team to work towards this year and Mustafa hoped to be able to send a full team of six, with the backing of the Bermuda Olympic Association.

BEAMING WITH DELIGHT -- Leila Wadson, here pictured at the Commonwealth Games, was part of the successful gymnastics team in Pennsylvania.