Alannah's Story
Fast Facts
Sport: Rhythmic Gymnastics
Event: Rhythmic Gymnastics Group
Olympic History: Tokyo 2020
Highlights: Tokyo 2020 & World Championships 2018
Club: Premier Gymnastics Academy
Year Born: 1999
State Born: WA
About Alannah
Alannah Mathews grew up surrounded by gymnastics and has gone on to compete multiple times nationally and internationally. Alannah started the sport at just 8-years-old, inspired by her mother who had previously competed in the sport. She moved from Western Australia to Brisbane, Queensland, where she now practices her gymnastics with Premier Gymnastics in the Australian Senior Gymnastics Group.
The Australian Seniors Gymnastic Group is highly successful, with a long standings rank of No.1 in Australia, they’ve won 6 consecutive National Championships. As well as Mathews the team presently consists of Emily Abbot, Himeka Onoda, Alexandra Aristoteli, Felicity White.
The group has competed at World Cups in both Pesaro, Italy and Sofia, Bulgaria. They also travel internationally for training camps, bettering their skills in countries such as Germany and Bulgaria.
In 2018 the group attended the Gymnastics World Championships, in Sofia, Bulgaria. This was big for Australian Gymnastics as their attendance marked the first time in 10 years for a group. At the event they made a final rank of 29th with an end score of 28.925.
At the 2018 Gymnastics Queensland Awards Night, the group was honoured with the International Athlete Award of Excellence. At the World Championships they made history by being the first ever QLD senior group to represent Australia at that level.
Everyone in the team studies at university and in 2019 they attended the Napoli Summer Universiade. At the event their UniRoos rhythmic gymnastics team claimed 6th place, recording a score of 18.800 in the 5-ball group routine. This made history as the best ever score in an international competition.
In 2020 they scored PB’s to win at the Pacific Rim Trials in Sydney. Most recently the team has been victorious at the 2021 Continental Championship, as well as the 2021 Oceanic Championships.
The group made history in Tokyo as they became the first Australian Rhythmic Gymnastics Group to represent Australia at an Olympic Games.
Up against groups from 14 nations, the Australians completed a Ball apparatus routine and a second routine consisting of Clubs and Hoops. Mistakes on connections in both routines put a slight dampener on their performance, however the athletes held their heads high as they relished the opportunity to compete together at an Olympic Games.
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