Rockstars And Olympians Compete For NZ Gymnastics Titles

12 October 2024

Palmerston North played host to more than 900 gymnasts this last week at the XP New Zealand Gymnastics Championships.

Thousands of gymnasts around the country spend the first half of the year qualifying within their regions for selection to one of 15 provincial teams, for rights to compete at the annual championships where more than 1,500 medals and awards were earned, across aerobics, artistic, rhythmic, and trampoline gymnastics.

Of the 900+ athlete contingent at the championships, were three sisters from Dunedin – Isabelle (9), Tiffany (11), and Olivia Mei (13) – who all competed in three different gymnastics sports.

“The girls started recreational gymnastics about 7 years ago just to have a bit of fun. They all took to it really well and wanted to get into competitive,” says Mum Juin Mei.

Olivia gave women’s artistic a go while Tiffany loves dancing and decided to do rhythmic. Isabelle started with women’s artistic and added in aerobics in term four last year.

It was Isabelle’s first national championships.

“I like gymnastics because I get to try new skills and train with my best friends. At nationals I’ve really enjoyed competing and getting to wear my leotard.” Isabelle competed in the aerobics level 6 individual and pairs competition.

For Tiffany and Olivia, it was their second nationals.

“I wanted to do competitive because there are heaps of really cool tricks that you can learn. And at nationals I get to see gymnasts that I look up to do all these tricks.” Says rhythmic gymnast Tiffany. “My favourite gymnast is Havana Hopman.”

For the oldest Olivia, uneven bars is her favourite apparatus. Though she placed second this year on bars it was not her highlight of the week.

“My highlight this week was doing a layout in my floor routine, because it was a new skill that I just learned. And I’ve liked wearing sparkly leotards and having fun with my teammates.”

“I do aerobics too but I prefer artistic because I enjoy doing the different apparatus. I think people should do gymnastics because you learn to do flips and tricks and it helps you to play other sports.” Olivia finishes.

On the rhythmic floor, this year’s group competition included the Canterbury Rockstars which was made up of more coaches than athletes.

“We decided we wanted to put a group together but we needed four or five athletes and we only had two, so we managed to convince three of our junior coaches to come out of retirement to make up the team,” says coach Erin Costello.

Those three junior coaches Sarah Quinn, Hana Gray, and Isabella Ralston agreed to join level 10 athletes Tavia Ralston and Annabel Walker and became the Canterbury Rockstars at the end of last year. All three, now in their early twenties, competed close to a decade each before retiring four to five years ago and continued with coaching.

“I initially thought they were joking” says Ralston, “but I knew it would be a fun thing to do.”

“Yes it’s been lots of fun,” agrees Gray. “The first training felt pretty horrendous – the body was definitely a bit out of condition. But it didn’t take long for that muscle memory to fire back up again.”

The group finished in fourth place and happy with their showings. Quinn is now contemplating staying out of retirement and joining her team mates in individual next year as a new division is introduced for older athletes who do not wish to compete in all four apparatus.

2024 New Zealand Champions

• Aerobics – Alderney Shing (Auckland)
• Men’s artistic - William (Will) Fu Allen (Auckland)
• Women’s artistic – Jun McDonald (Canterbury)
• Rhythmic - Havana Hopman (GymSports Manukau)
• Trampoline: women – Madaline Davidson (Canterbury)
• Trampoline: men – Dylan Schmidt (GymSports Manukau)
• Double-mini trampoline: women – Melissa Romeril (Canterbury)
• Double-mini trampoline: men – Campbell Robertson (Canterbury)
• Tumbling: women – Emma Tindale (Bay of Plenty)
• Tumbling: men – Lachlan Smith (Northland)

Gymnasts of the Year

• Aerobics – Brooke Davies
• Men’s artistic - Ben Stein 
• Women’s artistic – Georgia-Rose Brown
• Rhythmic – Havana Hopman
• Trampoline – Dylan Schmidt and Madaline Davidson

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