Meet SA’s gymnastics team for the 2024 Paris Olympics

South Africa will be represented by one competitor in gymnastics competition at the Paris Olympics 2024.

Caitlin Rooskrantz will battle for the medals in the women’s artistic events.

Rooskrantz, 22, qualified for the games by virtue of her individual results, through the all-around event at the 2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp in Belgium.

She attended Parktown High School for Girls.

She had planned to have a gap year to focus on competing at the Olympics, though those plans were changed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2022, she enrolled in the University of Johannesburg and began studying marketing management.

She comes from an athletic family: her father played football, and her older brother was involved in field hockey and cricket.

Her father died when she was eight. Her mother gave up working full-time as a nurse to support Rooskrantz’s gymnastics career.

She finished 61st in the qualifying stage of the delayed Tokyo Olympics 2020 and did not qualify for any finals. Her score was a personal best.

HISTORY

Founded in 1881, the International Gymnastics Federation is the oldest international sports federation in the world.

The origin of gymnastics dates to antiquity, when it was recommended by philosophers as a way of combining physical exercise with intellectual activity.

The sport grew in popularity during the 19th century as an increasing number of competitions were formed, including the gymnastics competition at the newly revived Olympic Games in Athens in 1896.

OVERVIEW

Artistic gymnastics is composed of a number of individual competitions on different apparatus, as well as a team competition involving gender-specific apparatus.

Each piece of apparatus requires different skills.

Men compete across the floor exercise, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars, and horizontal bar, while women’s events include the vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise.

Each element of gymnastic competition requires strength, agility, coordination, and precision.

Up until 2004, gymnastic routines at the Games were evaluated with a maximum of 10 points, but from 2005 the mode of scoring changed to a combination of a D score (difficulty/content of the exercise) and an E score (execution) to allow for a greater variation between athletes’ performances.

Changes to the scoring system were first considered following the Montreal 1976 Olympic Games, when Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci became the first competitor in history to earn a perfect score of 10 for her routine on the uneven bars during the team competition.

OLYMPIC HISTORY

Artistic gymnastics was introduced at the very first Olympic Games of the modern era in 1896 and has been included in every edition since.

The competition was restricted to male competitors for 32 years until the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, when women were allowed to compete for the first time.

It wasn’t until 1952 that the women’s programme was developed with seven events, and then later stabilised at six events, as has been the case since the 1960 Games in Rome.

There are eight events on the men’s programme.

DATES

The artistic gymnastic competition at the Paris Olympics 2024 will be contested from 27 July to 5 August at the Bercy Arena.

SOUTH AFRICA OLYMPIC WRESTLING HISTORY

South Africa has never won a gymnastics medal in its Olympic history.

PRIZE MONEY ON OFFER

The South African Sports Confederation, Olympic and Paralympic Committee (Sascoc) has confirmed the prize money on offer for any South African medal winners – as well as their coaches.

– Athletes who win gold will be awarded R400 000, with the coach receiving R100 000

– Silver medalists will earn R200 000 and R50 000 for the coach

– Bronze medal payouts will be R75 000 and R25 000 for the athlete and coach, respectively

TEAM SA GYMNASTICS TEAM FOR PARIS OLYMPICS 2024

Women: Caitlin Rooskrantz (artistic)

Coach/Manager: Ilse Pelser (coach)