South Africa gymnastics: Increasing success on world stage facilitated by humour and joy
Caitlin Rooskrantz and Naveen Daries, the pride of South Africa gymnastics after recent forays into medal positions on the world scene, welcome seven other nations to the African Artistic Gymnastics Championships, excited to compete in front of home fans.
Artistic Gymnastics
“Gymnastics tells you no, all day long,” says the voiceover on a playful montage of falls from South African gymnast Caitlin Rooskrantz. Created for Instagram by the woman herself, the commentary continues: “It mocks you over and over again telling you, ‘You’re an idiot’.”
The audio no doubt brings a smile to those who grew up quoting the cheesiest lines from Stick It, a 2006 American teen comedy-drama based on the sport. The falls are also no doubt all too familiar with gymnasts across the globe – part and parcel of a sport that requires balance, coordination, strength, poise, and grace. No one’s ever going to get that right every day.
The humour inherent in Rooskrantz's post expresses the joy the Commonwealth Games bronze medallist feels for her sport, her ebullience increased a notch as South Africa prepare to host the African Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Pretoria from 25-27 May.
“1 WEEK OUT from getting to represent RSA again!” posted Rooskrantz from her training base at the Johannesburg Gymnastics Centre five days before the competition at the Heartfelt Arena in Tshwane began. “On home ground this time round! It’s going to be insane.”
South Africa gymnastics' evolution
It's the first time South Africa has hosted the event in eight years and things have changed in the gymnastics world for the host nation, largely due to Rooskrantz and teammate Naveen Daries.
In 2018, as a result of winning the all-around event at that year's South African National Championships, Rooskrantz qualified for the 2018 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Doha, Qatar. The year before, Daries had competed in her first Worlds, and has gone on to compete in three more.
In 2019, Rooskrantz was the first South African to win a medal at an international gymnastics competition, claiming gold at the FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Cup Challenge event in Szombathely, Hungary on her specialist apparatus, the uneven bars.
The same year, Rooskrantz qualified for the all-around event at the Tokyo Olympics courtesy of her performance at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany. Daries’ bronze medal in the all-around at the African Championships a year later meant the pair would be South Africa’s first female gymnasts to compete at an Olympic Games since Beijing 2008.
At the 2022 World Cup in Cairo, Rooskrantz won gold on the uneven bars in March and four months later, secured bronze on the uneven bars at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, her best result to date.
A sixth-place finish in the all-around competition for Daries was the highest-ever finish for a South African gymnast in the individual all-around event, as was the fourth place for South Africa in the women’s team competition.
The hard training was paying off.
African Artistic Gymnastics Championships 2023
The focus right now though, is the home continental championships in which South Africa compete against Algeria, Angola, Cameroon, Egypt, Mali, Morocco, and Senegal.
The event combines the team and all-around final on one day of competition – the women's edition is on Friday 26 May, the men's on Saturday 27 May.
Not only are continental honours at stake but qualification for September’s World Championship in Antwerp, Belgium.
One men’s team and one women’s team qualify automatically for the worlds from these African championships, with the Antwerp event one of four opportunities gymnasts have to qualify for the Paris Olympics in 2024.
Rooskrantz who is the defending African champion, the first South African woman to achieve this feat since 2014, said ahead of the event:
“Our team this year is similar to that of last year, so we’d like to use these championships to build on what we’ve achieved in the past. Victory for our team will secure direct qualification for World Championships, which is well within our capabilities, especially on home soil.
“Personally, I’d like to have a clean competition and try to defend my all-around title, as well as my uneven bars title that I’ve held for a few years.”
That will be the uneven bars described in Stick It as the apparatus for you, “If you like feeling pieces of skin the size of quarters come off your hands”, something no doubt Rooskrantz, and her fellow gymnasts, smile at with recognition.