Sunday Spotlight: Charlotte Sullivan (NZL)

This week's Sunday Spotlight features Charlotte Sullivan, a junior elite gymnast from New Zealand who trains at Christchurch School of Gymnastics. At 13, she trains 32 hours each week and has performed well in overseas competitions, finishing 3rd overall at the 2011 Victorian State Championships  and qualifying for the beam final at the 2012 Pacific Rim competition. New Zealand has a relatively small elite gymnastics programme, so it is fantastic to see girls like Charlotte doing well on the international stage.

Charlotte trains on beam at the Christchurch School of Gymnastics (credit: The Press, Christchurch)

She started gymnastics at age 6 and has been described as tenacious, hard-working and talented. Her best apparatus is beam, where she performs difficult skills including a cleanly executed split-change half-turn and a flic- back layout series. Here she is competing at the New Zealand National Championships, held in Blenheim this month.

Charlotte's beam routine from the 2012 New Zealand National Championships, Blenheim

She is a tidy and flexible gymnast and also shows some powerful tumbling on floor- she has alot of potential! The routine below shows her performance during the team final at the 2012 Pacific Rim Championships. The team from New Zealand at this championship consisted of junior elites from the Christchurch School of Gymnastics. Their training had been severely impacted by the many earthquakes occurring in Christchurch at this time. However, the young an in-experienced team performed extremely well considering their circumstances and very much enjoyed the opportunity to compete against some of the best gymnasts in the world- Go New Zealand!!

Charlotte on floor at the 2012 Pacific Rim Championships, Score: 12.500

Here is an interview with Charlotte and her team mates at the conclusion of the Pacific Rim competition. They are so talented and we wish them all the best for competitions in the future. Charlotte's aim is to make it to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. If she makes it, she will be New Zealand's first Olympic athlete in the sport to do so.

Andrea Joyce interviews the young team from New Zealand at the 2012 Pacific Rims

Article by Imogen Browne (@ImogenMireille)