GYMNASTS FEEL THE RHYTHM OF GAMES
Members of a local club will get to experience what it is like to compete at the tournament in April after being invited to test out artistic gymnastics equipment which has just been installed, writes Emma Greenwood
THE BUZZ AROUND THE CLUB IS AMAZING THAT WE WILL GO INTO THE VENUE, WE WILL GET TO TRAIN ON THE EQUIPMENT AND BE WHERE THE GAMES ARE GOING TO BE LEE MCDERMOTT
GOLD Coast gymnasts will be the first to test Commonwealth Games equipment that will provide a lasting legacy for the sport in the region.
About 40 athletes from the Gold Coast Gymnastics Club will test artistic gymnastics equipment at the Coomera Indoor Sports Centre – the Games venue for the sport.
The rising stars, boys and girls aged between 12 and 19, will compete in a test event at the facility on top-of-the-range competition apparatus that will become a legacy item for Gold Coast gymnasts after the Games.
Two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist and director of coaching at Gold Coast Gymnastics Club Lee McDermott only confirmed to his athletes yesterday that they would be testing equipment at the Games venue.
And he said his young pupils and their parents would be overwhelmed at the opportunity.
“The buzz around the club is amazing that we will go into the venue, we will get to train on the equipment and be where the Games are going to be,” said McDermott, who won gold on the rings at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada, as well as team gold with England in Kuala Lumpur in 1998.
“The parents and the kids were completely overwhelmed.”
Coomera is the home of the Gold Coast Gymnastics Club but athletes and officials have had to relocate while the space is transformed for the Games.
But in an outstanding legacy outcome, the club will return to the Coomera Indoor Sports Centre after April and benefit from both the facility and the gymnastics apparatus.
“It was (already) a fully functioning gym in an amazing $40 million building (before we left),” McDermott said of the new Coomera centre.
But he said re-entering the space as it would be for the Games was another level.
“(As a former elite athlete) I can tell (my gymnasts) how it feels to be there but they’re going to experience it for themselves,” he said.
“Now I don’t just have to tell them my story of what it’s like, they can experience it for themselves.”
While local juniors will test the artistic facilities, elite rhythmic gymnasts will compete in the Australia Cup the following day – Sunday, February 18 – an event that will determine the final make-up of Australia’s three-woman team for the Games.
The competition will not only be the final selection event for the Australian team, but will pit the Australian girls against teams from Singapore and New Zealand in a three-way competition for the Cup.
Michaela Lyn Whitehouse, Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva, Enid Sung and Ashari
Gill are vying for their first Commonwealth Games team alongside veteran Danielle Prince, who competed at the Delhi and Glasgow Games.
Brisbane product Prince said she was excited to compete in front of friends and family on the Coast.
“Plus, the opportunity to compete in the Commonwealth Games venue before the actual event is a great to become familiar with the venue and the environment,” Prince said.
While Sung is 23 and Whitehouse, 19, Kiroi-Bogatyreva and Gill are just 15 years old and just entering senior competition.
“I am just entering the Commonwealth Games qualifying age,” Kiroi-Bogatyreva said.
“As the Australia Cup is being run for the first time it is super exciting to be one of the pioneers of this amazing event on home ground, and it is more exciting to have this event as my first stepping stone on the road to my senior international gymnastics career.”
Victorian Gill is almost as excited to be visiting her Gold Coast-based cousins as she is to compete next weekend.
But she’s determined to seal a Games spot.
“I’m excited to be competing with Australia’s best rhythmic gymnasts, and to have the chance to qualify for Commonwealth Games,” she said.
Gymnastics is among the most popular Games sports and while tickets sold out quickly, they remain available for the Australia Cup through Ticketek.