In only few days from now, from May 22 nd – 4th June, Melbourne’s Hisense Arena hosts Australian Gymnastics Championship 2017. It’s an annual event that attracts all top gymnasts from Australia and some international guest competitors. The event covers five Olympic disciplines: Men’s and Women’s Artistic Gymnastics, Acrobatics, Trampolining and Rhythmic Gymnastics.
Rhythmic Gymnastics is a very young sport that started in 1940s and became an Olympic sport only in 1984. Since then it has gone through major changes and is probably one of the fastest changing sports as rules (Code of Points) are modified every Olympic Cycle, every four years. The popularity of RG (Rhythmic Gymnastics) is rapidly growing. In the last 20 years it has become one of the most popular sports for girls in Eastern Europe and middle Asia, hence these countries dominate the sport. Australian Rhythmic Gymnasts have been advancing their skills and nowadays you can see more and more of them at the World class events. As RG is a “sport of young” a Junior gymnast aged 14 -15 is already a seasoned professional with a decade of experience.
In her 15 years, Alexandra Kiroi is one of the highest ranked Australian Elite Junior International Rhythmic Gymnasts, despite being a Junior she could make a good competition to most Senior Gymnasts in Australia too. Alexandra started kids general gymnastics and various dance classes when she was 3 years old, by the time she was 6 she moved into Rhythmic Gymnasts at Prahran Rhythmic Gymnastics Specialist Centre in Melbourne. Nine years later Alexandra is one of the most prominent gymnasts representing Australia.
In the past recent years she has won number of competitions including some International Tournaments. She has become a National Champion in 2015 as a level 9 Junior.
After overcoming a fracture in early 2016, Alexandra commenced her current competition cycle with World Club’s Championship in Tokyo Japan also known as AEON Cup, the September event attracted Olympic medalist and leading gymnasts from over 20 nations. Her best results at AEON Cup was 11th in Hoop. After the competition instead of returning home, Alexandra flew to Moscow for a 5 month long training with world’s best coaches. In this 5 months she attended 7 training camps and competed at an International Tournament in Turin, Italy where she won second place trophy with Individual apparatus gold and silver medals. After gaining some valuable experience and setting up new routines with Anastasia Mishenina (an amazing Russian coach who has trained National Team gymnasts from Italy, Egypt, Cyprus, Taiwan and China) Alexandra has been presenting her spectacular skills to Australian audience. Her latest achievements were:
- Qualifying to the State Team by completing to State Team Qualifying Trials with the highest trail scores (whilst Alexandra competes as a Junior International her scores exceeded ones of the state’s Senior International level gymnasts).
- Winning her 7th year in a row Victorian State Championship title. This year Alexandra took home 6 out of 6 possible gold medals, again finishing with the highest competition score across all levels.
- Winning NSW State Championship as a non-residential (guest) competitor.
- Winning Prahran Invitational International Tournament (Melbourne) a competition that involved teams from around Australia, NZ and Malaysia.
- Qualifying into the Finals at Aphrodite Cup 2017 – a major International Tournament in Athens, Greece.
Now, as time draws near the National Championship, Alexandra spends hours in gym polishing her competition routines to the perfection. Alexandra will be competing in the Junior International level at the Australian Gymnastics Championship on 1st, 2nd and 3rd of June at Hisense Arena in Melbourne.
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