Rifda Irfanaluthfi ready to write gymnastics history at Paris 2024 for Indonesia: 'I want to motivate everyone'
"I hope to qualify for the Olympics because I would be the first for Indonesia," gymnast Rifda Irfanaluthfi told Olympics.com back in May 2022. Two years later, she will fulfil that dream at the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
Irfanaluthfi has been selected by the Indonesia National Olympic Committee to compete in the women’s artistic gymnastics competition in Paris. She is already writing history with her presence, and in her own words, “I want to show the world that Indonesian gymnasts are there."
“I kept asking my manager, my coach and my friends. I texted them one by one to ask: Did I qualify?” Irfanaluthfi told Reuters. “At the time I was crying, hugging my coach. My coach told me that finally our struggle from 2015 had become a reality.”
Rifda Irfanaluthfi of Indonesia during a training session ahead of the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
In October 2023, Irfanaluthfi suffered a knee injury at the 2023 FIG Antwerp Gymnastics World Championships in Belgium. The next day, she not only found out that she would require surgery, but that her performance the previous day had secured her a ticket to Paris 2024.
She explained, “This is not for me alone. I want to motivate everyone, especially young athletes, not only for artistic gymnastics, but in other sports as well that have never qualified for the Olympics. I want to tell them if I can do it, then you can too.”
Irfanaluthfi will make her Olympic debut on 28 July 2024 in the women’s artistic gymnastics competition, which will take place at the Bercy Arena.