Corinne Meghan
Mitglied
The podium
My coach looked the deal. Somebody asked me later on in life if he was black. No, he was white. It was only a school sports club in South Africa during Apartheid, but it was important to me to go to each gymnastics class in order to render some of the exercises perfect.
We had been to a lake for the day. Mum, Dad, and me. I met Kirsty and Kelly, two fellow pupils. They so kindly invited me to join their sports club.
The floor, the beam, the uneven bars and vault. The lot. I was 13 at the time and wore my black school leotard. We did the warm-up and practised till the walls came tumbling down.
One afternoon we were invited to watch a competition at the Sports University in Pretoria. I was in awe because of a performance by a very talented gymnast who did a summersault tilted back from the uneven bars. I explained: ‘Gosh, I could never do that!’
My coach chuckled. The next day, in the gym, he said: ‘Why don’t you try that particular summersault?’ I must have looked a bit out of it. However, I was used to him coming up with all kinds of ideas in order to improve our output.
On one occasion, he blind-folded me and suggested walking up and down on the beam in order to give me more confidence. It did the trick. ‘I watched ‘Karate Kid’, he said in terms of an explanation. This time round he decreased the height of the uneven bars and put a big blue mat underneath. I tried the summersault in slow motion. Once, twice, three times over.
We ventured on to doing the summersault on the uneven bars. The difficulty consisted in getting the momentum right and knowing when to let go of the bar. – Not an easy endeavour. I managed to pluck up the courage, took a deep breath and bounced off the upper bar with my legs, and backwards I flipped.
We went to all sorts of championships, even the South African Championships in Grade 5. However, I was keen on winning gold for the school championships.
When the day arrived I did alright on the beam, and came second on the floor. I was so excited and maybe even a wee bit scared of the exercise on the uneven bars, but in the end managed to get through the exercise. I had managed to do the back-flip summersault.
I won the gold medal for best gymnast of the school, and was oh so proud. I took the silver trophy to Germany with me when I left South Africa, and returned it the next year.
My coach looked the deal. Somebody asked me later on in life if he was black. No, he was white. It was only a school sports club in South Africa during Apartheid, but it was important to me to go to each gymnastics class in order to render some of the exercises perfect.
We had been to a lake for the day. Mum, Dad, and me. I met Kirsty and Kelly, two fellow pupils. They so kindly invited me to join their sports club.
The floor, the beam, the uneven bars and vault. The lot. I was 13 at the time and wore my black school leotard. We did the warm-up and practised till the walls came tumbling down.
One afternoon we were invited to watch a competition at the Sports University in Pretoria. I was in awe because of a performance by a very talented gymnast who did a summersault tilted back from the uneven bars. I explained: ‘Gosh, I could never do that!’
My coach chuckled. The next day, in the gym, he said: ‘Why don’t you try that particular summersault?’ I must have looked a bit out of it. However, I was used to him coming up with all kinds of ideas in order to improve our output.
On one occasion, he blind-folded me and suggested walking up and down on the beam in order to give me more confidence. It did the trick. ‘I watched ‘Karate Kid’, he said in terms of an explanation. This time round he decreased the height of the uneven bars and put a big blue mat underneath. I tried the summersault in slow motion. Once, twice, three times over.
We ventured on to doing the summersault on the uneven bars. The difficulty consisted in getting the momentum right and knowing when to let go of the bar. – Not an easy endeavour. I managed to pluck up the courage, took a deep breath and bounced off the upper bar with my legs, and backwards I flipped.
We went to all sorts of championships, even the South African Championships in Grade 5. However, I was keen on winning gold for the school championships.
When the day arrived I did alright on the beam, and came second on the floor. I was so excited and maybe even a wee bit scared of the exercise on the uneven bars, but in the end managed to get through the exercise. I had managed to do the back-flip summersault.
I won the gold medal for best gymnast of the school, and was oh so proud. I took the silver trophy to Germany with me when I left South Africa, and returned it the next year.