Gymnastics championships

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32589, 24 April 1971, Page 46

Gymnastics championships

The appearance of three international gymnasts one a former Danish representative—will instil considerable interest in the Canterbury tumbling and modern gymnastic championships at Cowles Stadium this afternoon. Two of the gymnasts, Misses J. Buchanan and J. de Beer (both Canterbury), were members of the New Zealand team which competed in the world sports gymnastics in Ljubljana,

Jugoslavia, last October. Both will appear in the women’s tumbling championship. The third international is Mrs M. Sljubjerg (nee Nicholson), a New Zealander by birth, who recently returned to this country and now lives in Dunedin with her Danish husband. Mrs Sljubjerg represented Denmark in a cultural exhibition of rhythmic gymnastics at the Mexico Olympics in 1968, and has a noteworthy international reputation. Modem gymnastics differs from the conventional sports gymnastics at Olympic and world games, in that the only apparatus used is balls, hoops, and ropes. It is a con-

temporary form of gymnastics involving elements of ballet and modem and folk dancing. Misses Buchanan, and de Beer will provide strong opposition for last year’s champion, Miss A Douglas (Canterbury). The competition might have been stronger had a third member of the New Zealand gymnastics team, Miss F. Dove (Canterbury), not been injured. She broke a bone in a foot and will be out for several weeks.

With her experience, Mrs Sljubjerg must be favoured to win the women’s modem title, but it will be most interesting to see how the defending champion and last year’s New Zealand cham-

pion, Miss K- Macintosh (Otago) performs. Last year’s girls’ tumbling champion, Miss R. Gibson (Canterbury), will be defending her title, and looks a likely winner. The championships the first major event of the season on the Canterbury Gymnastics Association’s calendar have attracted greater entries over all than last year, with record numbers in the tumbling section. Entries in the modem section have increased by 12 over six grades to 73, and the tumbling section, which caters for males, unlike modem, has an increase of 39 entries to 146 in four grades.