All round gymnast

Year 7 student Emily Chinnock will represent Victoria at the 2015 Australian Gymnastics Championships this month and will compete in four apparatus. Now 12 years old, Emily started ballet lessons at a very young age and, after a family friend suggested she try gymnastics, she made the switch when she was just three years of age, and has been competing since she was nine years old.

Representing Waverley Gymnastics Centre and training a significant 26.5 hours a week, there is no surprise that she has little time for any other activities aside from the sport and her studies. Emily performs best on the vault and bars, but considers the floor as her favourite apparatus.  She loves lots of the different aspects of the sport – the training, the girls she trains with and the girls she meets through competitions along the way. Emily also says “I love the challenges that it gives me as there is always something to try and master or perfect.”

Emily deems winning the 2014 Victorian Championship All Around and Bars titles as being her biggest sporting achievement thus far, as well as being selected for the Victorian State Team. Winning the Trans Bass Bars title and coming second on vault at the national clubs have also been recent highlights.

Emily views Simone Biles from the USA as her favourite gymnast “...because she is so powerful and amazing to watch,” and would love to one day represent Australia.

We’ll be watching Emily and wish her all the best!