Gymnastics

Namibian gymnasts Robert Honiball and Kimberly Anne van Zyl created history by winning Namibia’s first-ever gold medals in the artistic gymnastics category at the African Gymnastics Championships on Friday.

Honiball won a gold medal in the Senior Men’s Rings final, while Van Zyl won gold in the Senior Women’s beam final.

Honiball gave a great display of power and control to win the gold medal with 13,700 points, finishing just ahead of Mohamed Srour of Egypt and Wajdi Bouallegue of Tunisia who shared second place on 13,600 points.

Namibia will host the 10th Junior and Senior African Gymnastics Championships and the African Continental Games qualifiers for the 2010 Youth Olympics in Walvis Bay from 28 February 28 to 13 March.

Bank Windhoek is the main sponsor of the event that will see more than 400 gymnasts from an estimated 16 African countries competing for honours at the Walvis Bay Indoor Sport Complex.

Walvis Bay Municipality last week donated N$80 000 worth of gymnastics equipment to the Namibian Gymnastics Federation, as part of its ongoing support towards the development of the youth.

The equipment arrived at the Jan Wilken Sport Complex, where it was received by the president of the NGF, Valereis Geldenhuys Venter.

A delegation of almost 50 Namibians traveled to Pretoria, South Africa, on the 11th December to participate in the annual Zone 6 Gymnastics Competition. The 39 gymnasts brought prestige and pride to our country and our sport when they managed to win 15 overall medals, 13 team medals and 26 Individual Apparatus Medals.

The highlights for Namibia were the two overall gold medals which were won by Michel’le Solomons (senior girls – trampoline) and Anica Profitt (senior rhythmic gymnastics).

The first ever Youth Olympic Games will be held in August 2010 in Singapore and a young trampoline star from Walvis Bay will represent Namibia with the universality place in trampoline.

Michel’le Solomons, was chosen by the National Olympic Committee to compete in the trampoline section of the Youth Olympic Games. The news of her selection came as a big surprise to the NGF (Namibia Gymnastics Federation) and Fanie Oosthuizen, vice president of the NGF announced this achievement at the National Championships for Woman’s and Men’s Artistic Gymnastics.

Namibia’s top male gymnast Robert Honiball excelled at the SA Cup international gymnastics competition in Centurion, South Africa by winning five medals and finishing second overall. Honiball was Namibia’s sole representative at the competition which saw gymnasts from the host nation South Africa, Great Britain, Malaysia, New Zealand and Romania also in action.

During September 2009, top Namibian Rhythmic gymnast Nicole Bierbach participated in the 29th Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Mie, Japan. This is the first time ever that Namibia has qualified to attend the World Championships and has been represented at this event.

The talented young gymnast did not allow herself to be intimidated by the extremely high standard of the gymnasts she was competing with, although they were the best in the world and possessed a wealth more experience in both training and international competitions, than she did.

The Namibia Gymnastic Federation's Artistic Gymnastics Second Qualifying competition for Levels 4 to Senior Olympic took place on Saturday in Windhoek at the Excelsior Gymnastics Club's hall. This competition was gymnasts' last chance to string together a series of apparatus routines to achieve the necessary qualifying scores for the Nationals at the end of the year.

The Northern and Western Zones gave the Central zone a good run for their money in the first Interzone Artistic Gymnastics team competition organised and hosted by Excelsior Gymnastics Club on Thursday. Spectators were treated to some of the best quality gymnastics at junior level in Namibia.

In the Men's Artistic Level One competition the Northern Zone beat Central Zone with the slimmest of margins with a total team score of 142.20 points against the 142 of the Central Zone team.

Not even a broken nose could stop rhythmic gymnast Anica Profitt of the Walvis Bay Gymnastics Club from giving an excellent performance to finish second overall at the second National Rhythmic Gymnastics Qualifying competition at the SKW club on Saturday.

During the warm up session on the second day of the competition, Anica fell and cracked her nose. The severe bleeding was stopped and she was treated immediately afterwards with ice packs and an ice spray. Barely 10 minutes later she successfully completed her first competition routine for the day in the Junior Olympic section.