Emily Abbot

Fast Facts

Sport: Rhythmic Gymnastics
Event: Rhythmic Gymnastics Group
Olympic History: Tokyo 2020
Highlights: Tokyo 2020, World Cup Pesaro 2019, World Cup Sofia 2019, World Universiade Games 2019, Continental Championships 2021
Club: Premier Gymnastics Academy
Year Born: 1997
State Born: SA

About Emily

Emily Abbot grew up in North Adelaide, during this time she was devoted to rhythmic gymnastics and progressed as an elite amateur in the sport. She competed at Australian Nationals as well as at the New Zealand Championships.

Abbot was out due to injury during the 2016-2017 season. After experiencing ongoing hip and thigh pain, she had a hip arthroscopy to repair a bleeding, severed and detached ligament. After the treatment pain didn’t subside, and with further tests she was soon diagnosed with a rare bone tumour that causes extreme pain. She then underwent surgery to remove the tumour, it was successful and her pain was relieved. 

Due to her injury, it was unknown whether she’d be able to compete again, but her hard work ethic and dedication to rehabilitation prevailed. At the end of 2017 she returned to competing, and went on to attend the Emirates Asian & GCC Cup and the DuGym Cup.

In October 2018 Abbot moved to Brisbane to be in the Premier Gymnastics Academy Senior Group Team. The Australian Seniors Gymnastic Group is highly successful, with a long standings rank of No.1 in Australia, they’ve won six consecutive National Championships. As well as Abbot the team consisted of Alannah Mathews, Himeka Onoda, Alexandra Aristoteli and Felicity White.

The group has competed at World Cups in both Pesaro, Italy and Sofia, Bulgaria. They also travelled 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 sixth 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.