Two former Blenheim Gymnastics Club members are in the New Zealand team attending the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow next month
Matt Palmer and Anna Tempero, who learned their skills in this province but are now based elsewhere, will travel to Scotland as part of a full men’s and women’s artistic gymnastics team.
Palmer, 27, now training out of the Tri Star Gymnastics club in Mount Roskill, Auckland, is the oldest member of the men’s gymnastics team.
He moved from the Blenheim Gymnastics Club several years ago to attend university in Auckland and train with top coach David Phillips at Tri Star Gymnastics. Glasgow will be Palmer’s second Commonwealth Games. He competed in Delhi during 2010 and in world cups and the world championships. He is described as an apparatus specialist who excels on the rings, a discipline where he won silver at the 2014 Australian national championships.
Over the last few years he has been hampered by injury but is reportedly back to his best for the Games.
Tempero has been based at the Christchurch School of Gymnastics since the beginning of last year. She is the oldest member of the women’s team, at 19, and is coached by Commonwealth Games team coaches, Jozsi Ferencz and Svetlana Sazonova. Tempero is considered to be a good all-rounder who excels on all apparatus.
Artistic teams of five men and five women have have been ratified by the New Zealand Olympic Committee, with two rhythmic gymnasts taking the total team tally to 12.
Leading the women’s artistic team is Christchurch’s Courtney McGregor, 15, who is considered the top medal prospect, particularly in the vault.
All-rounders Charlotte Sullivan, Mackenzie Slee, Brittany Robertson and Tempero complete the team, with all five of the women’s squad members of the Christchurch School of Gymnastics.
McGregor was New Zealand’s first female gymnast to make a World Cup final (in Doha, Qatar, in March) and win a medal at the prestigious Pacific Rim championships, a couple of weeks later in Vancouver.
Now, with a focus on increasing levels of difficulty on vault, she and her team-mates provide an opportunity for New Zealand to record strong individual and team scores.
“The women’s team has focused on increasing the difficulty of the routines and are now exhibiting skills that have been rarely seen in Oceania,” GymSports NZ boss Sarah Ashmole said.
“Courtney, in particular, has two very difficult vaults which, until 2014, had only been done by New Zealand male gymnasts. The competition at Glasgow will be tough, but we are expecting finals performances from the women with the possibility of a medal in an individual apparatus event.”
Commonwealth Games veterans Palmer and Mikhail (Misha) Koudinov, who attended the Games of 2006 and 2010, lead a strong men’s artistic team with opportunities expected to arise on the individual apparatus, including rings where Palmer hopes to deliver one of the highest levels of difficulty in the competition.
The men’s team, which secured a total of nine medals at the recent Australian championships in Melbourne, also comprises David Bishop, Kristofer Done and Reid McGowan.
In the rhythmic discipline, Kelly McDonald joins five-time New Zealand champion Amelia Coleman in targeting finals spots in Glasgow. McDonald recently lost her mother to illness and Ashmole credits the 20-year old with strength and resolve.
“She has kept her focus through all the difficulties of her personal situation and is one of the strongest-minded athletes GymSports New Zealand has seen,” she said.
The women’s team has a strong base in Christchurch, with members of the men’s team training in Auckland and the United States. The men will gather in London for a training camp prior to the Commonwealth Games opening on July 24 (NZ time).
New Zealand has won 10 medals in gymnastics disciplines at the Commonwealth Games, the most recent by current men’s team coach, David Phillips, who secured bronze at Kuala Lumpur in 1998.