The New Zealand Team at The Commonwealth Games

from the NZ Oympic Committee

GYMNASTS PRIMED AND READY TO PERFORM AT COMMONWEALTH GAMES

10 June 1998

A gymastics team equivalent in size to the successful squad that represented New Zealand at the Auckland Commonwealth Games in 1990 has today been announced for the Kuala Lumpur Games in September.

The New Zealand Olympic Committee in conjunction with New Zealand Gymnastics today announced eleven names, led by national artistic champion David Phillips, to compete in Malaysia.

Phillips, who has been training in Canada for the last five months, and the other members of the men's and women's artistic team recently consolidated their positions by performing at the Canadian championships. With team mate Shane Lyons based in the United Kingdom, the Canadian event was the first opportunity for the New Zealand men to compete together. The rhythmic gymnastic team confirmed their fifth ranking in the Commonwealth following a successful completion of their European Tour.

Team manager Marie Stechman is confident that with the correct build up the gymnastics team will be finely tuned to perform at their peak in Malaysia.

"The build up to the Games includes competition in the Pacific Alliance Championships in July followed by a test event in Kuala Lumpur involving both the rhythmic and artistic women's gymnasts."

The Malaysian test event will be doubly important. Not only will it give the gymnasts a chance to acclimatise, it will also give them the opportunity of competing on a sprung balance beam and vault, neither of which is available for training or competition in New Zealand," Stechman said.

Final selections for the team to travel to Kuala Lumpur are dependent on the named gymnasts passing a fitness and performance trial to be held at the Auckland Championships over the weekend of 8 and 9 August. At this trial the selected gymnasts and named reserves will be required to show fitness to compete, achieve a minimum of the performance level they were selected upon and show selectors they are performing at a higher level than in earlier competitions. If a gymnast does not meet the performance criteria they can be replaced in the team by a named reserve.

With the announcement of the gymnastics team the New Zealand Olympic Committee has confirmed eleven sections of the Commonwealth Games team. Already announced have been: Cycling (track and road), Bowls (men and women), Athletics, Swimming, Shooting, Boxing, Badminton, Ten Pin Bowling and Squash.

The full New Zealand gymnastic team is:

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