University of Florida sophomore gymnast Marissa King has been named to England’s 2010 Commonwealth Games team. The Cambridge, England native will head to Delhi, India for the October 3-14 games to compete for her country.
The Commonwealth Games is an international, multi-sport event. This year’s Games feature athletes from 72 countries vying for titles in 17 sports. King will be on England’s five-member artistic gymnastics team, which competes Oct. 4-8 in the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium.
“I’m very excited. It was quite overwhelming for me to finally find out that I’d been selected,” King said. “It’s always been my dream to compete the full belt - doing a Commonwealth Games, European and World Championships and the Olympics - so to finally get selected to the Commonwealth Games is a dream come true. It just shows that all my hard work paid off.”
This past summer, King took the silver in the Women’s British Championships’ vault final. In 2008, she represented Great Britain at the Summer Olympics in Beijing.
As a freshman for the Gator gymnastics team, King advanced to the vault and floor exercise individual event finals at the 2010 NCAA Championships held in the Stephen C. O’Connell Center. She took fourth in the NCAA vault final and tied for fifth in the floor competition. King earned a total of four All-America honors in 2010, tying for the most All-America honors ever by a Gator freshman (three other freshmen with four All-America honors – Amanda Castillo/2007, Betsy Hamm/1998 and Chrissy Van Fleet/1997).
“It’s just a great accomplishment, and I really can’t wait to get out there and compete for my country,” she said.
