BUENOS AIRES: Gymnast Kate Sayer is the latest addition to the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games (YOG) squad, taking our Team to 61 athletes across 20 sports.
At 15 years-old, Sayer will compete in artistic gymnastics alongside Lidiia Iakovleva in rhythmic gymnastics and Liam Christie and Jessica Pickering in trampolining.
The “really excited” Sayer said that her selection in the Buenos Aires Team signifies the start of a serious gymnastics career.
“When I was selected I realised that this was just the beginning and I’ve tried to keep calm and focused on my training,” Sayer said.
Artistic gymnastics is a combination of four different disciplines being vault, beam, bars and floor.
Sayer explained that each discipline calls for a different set of skills.
“The vault requires speed and power, while for the beam you need balance and concentration.
“The bars require upper body strength and on the floor you need to be flexible and powerful in your tumbles.”
Sayer first got into gymnastics because as a child, her preferred mode of transportation was cartwheeling.
“My mum took me to gymnastics when I was four, because I was always hanging upside down on the couch! I would do handstands everywhere we went and would prefer to cartwheel instead of running or walking to get around.”
It was when she was eight years-old that the Gymnastics Queensland High Performance Centre took notice of the energetic youth and identified her for their invitation-only high performance training program.
Fast forward seven years and the Queenslander won gold at the 2018 Oceania Junior Championships, securing the artistic gymnastics YOG quota place for Australia.
Sayer was also a member of the 2018 Pacific Rim Championships team, where she helped Australia win bronze overall with her individual bronze on beam, and seventh on vault and floor to secure 11th place in the all-around junior competition.
She will continue her preparation for YOG by attending regular camps at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra along with her regular training back home.
"I will be focusing on improving the quality of each routine, while adding in more difficult skills to demonstrate at YOG," the young athlete said.
You can find out more about our YOG athletes HERE
Liana Buratti
olympics.com.au
