Gymnasts excel at championships
Visions Gymnastics Club members brought back ten medals.
Four members of the Visions Gymnastics Club managed to pocket a total of 10 medals at the 12th African Gymnastics Championships held in Pretoria recently.
Michael Makings (senior men’s team captain), Bianca Mann (senior women’s team) and Muhammad Khaalid Mia and Keagan Pearson who were both in the junior men’s team did a superb job for South African gymnastics, says head coach Derrick Scholtz.
“Our gymnasts were instrumental in these results and certainly did not disappoint the team selectors.”
The senior men’s team was third, the junior men’s team second and the senior women’s team won gold at the championships.
“Our senior Men’s Artistic Gymnasts (MAG) improved from their previous fourth place to a super third. The senior MAG competition is a hotly contested event in Africa and we are proud that Michael Makings could lead the team as captain to achieve a third place overall.”
Michael suffered a serious injury to his arm in the lead-up to the competition and unfortunately could not compete at full strength, but his scores were valuable in achieving the team medal.
Bianca Mann had a star performance, says Derrick.
“She controlled the nerves and competed her best to date at an international event. This brought her a second place in the all-around finals.”
Bianca also made finals for vault, bars and beam.
“She achieved a silver on bars and silver on beam, which makes her total medal tally one gold and three silver.
Following this performance, Bianca was nominated by the South African Gymnastics Federation to join the team to represent South Africa at the Commonwealth Games later this year.
The entire team is just awaiting approval from the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc).
Muhammad Khaalid Mia, who has led from the front helped his junior team achieve an overall silver medal and became the youngest male gymnast in Africa to claim a medal.
In addition he was third in all-around and third on the parallel and horizontal bars respectively, which also gave him three bronze medals.
Muhammad Khaalid also met the criteria to be nominated for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games and awaits final selection from Sascoc.
Keagan Pearson made his debut for South Africa and according to Derrick he was cool and calm.
“His scores contributed towards the final team’s silver and he also made it to two finals.”
Adele Heine, the club owner and coach agrees, saying that she is extremely proud of their gymnasts and their results.
“Visions gymnastics confirms a place as a top club in South Africa, being the only club in South Africa that consistently produces individual international medal winners in both Men’s and Women’s Artistic Gymnastics disciplines.”
