This week we hear from Maddie M in Year 12 about her impressive international Gymnastic feats..competing for New Zealand!

It was such an amazing experience competing against some of the gymnasts that I have watched on the tv since I was younger like Oksana Chusovitina (8x Olympian) and many other big names with gymnasts from literally everywhere - China, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Colombia etc. I think there were about 52 countries in total which was really cool to watch so many different styles of gymnastics.

My best results on each piece were 13th on floor, 15th on vault and 24th on beam. There were also quite a few gymnasts in their mid to late 20s competing so motivating to know that hopefully in a couple of years, with a bit more experience I might be able to get to a similar level and am coming back into the gym now with lots of motivation. I am also really wanting to work on difficulty and execution as I wasn’t far off making a floor final and with my upgraded vaults, I should be able to make vault finals if I do these comps again. I also loved the opportunity to see Germany, Qatar and Azerbaijan and loved trying the local food and seeing all the different architecture. I can’t believe how quickly it went but it taught me so many things such as independence (having to manage my own food, sleep etc) and there were lots of challenges like controlling nerves.