A GYMNASTICS team is appealing for people to be on the look out after their costumes were stolen and half were later found in a Bolton car park.

The outfits, belonging to Dynamite Gymnastics were snatched from the club’s coach while they were visiting Manchester for Gymfusion, at the Lowry Theatre.

They were taken some time between last Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Some of the ‘irreplaceable’ garments, based on Disney films Beauty and the Beast, Moana and Hercules were discovered at Carlton Street car park on Wednesday night.

The gymnasts who had travelled from Clydebank, just outside Glasgow, were still able to compete after borrowing new outfits at the 11th hour.

But it will cost them thousands to replace the missing garments, and some of the gymnasts — whose ages range from seven to 23 — may have miss out on forthcoming competitions.

Julie Wilson, of the group, said: “There are still 50 per cent of the costumes missing and they are no good without their partners.

“One of the costumes was made in Bulgaria, they are not things you can get your hands on very quickly.

“Kids were due to be performing and they’ve not had a chance to wear them on stage.

“They are all a bit gutted and we are now going to have to find an extra £300,00 to fund the new costumes. It might even come to more than that, because we’re going to have to pay whatever we can for someone to do them as soon as possible.”

She continued: “It’s been difficult, the younger ones were phoning their mums and saying ‘oh no, our costumes have gone missing.

“On the day we were lucky enough to have someone loan us some costumes. They drove from Glasgow to Manchester.

“And we went from Marks and Spencer to get makeshift costumes for one of the teams and they gave us a discount.”

Ms Wilson said the theft was especially cruel due to the work the club —which has three teams Ignition, Sparklers and Firecrackers — put into preparing for competitions.

But she is hopeful that the missing costumes might also turn up in Bolton.

Appealing to Boltonians to be vigilant, she said: “I would just ask them to keep and eye out because we would be delighted to get the costumes back. We don’t know if it’s going to be possible to have costumes for our next display. Please be vigilant and please contact us if you find any and we can send someone to get them.”

Dynamite Gymnastics can be contacted on 0141 952 8788 or via the Dyna Gym Facebook page.

Anyone with information should contact police on 101.