Pint-sized athlete wins big

Emily Ramasamy might look like any other nine-year-old girl, but the modest junior athlete is actually a State gymnastics champion.

Ramasamy recently travelled to Perth with the Batavia Coast Gymnastics team to compete in the Go for 2 & 5 Club Levels Championships and was named overall State champion in her division after placing first in all four of her disciplines.

The pint-sized Ramasamy undertook three 1.5-hour training sessions a week to prepare for the event, and said she was really nervous beforehand — although according to one of her coaches, Fiona Sherrell, it would have been impossible for anyone to tell.

“Emily is always happy, she’s a really good sport, you would never know whether she was State champion or didn’t come anywhere — she reacts exactly the same,” she said.

“She works so hard, we don’t have to push her or anything, she’s just motivated.”

This year was the first time a new national system was being used for the competition, but Sherrell said the whole squad adjusted and performed well.

“It was a little nerve-racking going into that because it was the unknown, but the girls were fantastic and we flew a judge here about four weeks before the State championships just to work with the girls and make sure they were all on track,” she said.

“That really made it a lot easier for us going into State championships because technically we knew everything we were doing was right.”

Sherrell has been coaching gymnastics in Geraldton for 30 years and while they have produced a lot of State champions, she said Ramasamy was one of the best students she had taught.

She also said Geraldton gymnasts had a few advantages over their city rivals which might help explain their high success rate.

“At a lot of the Perth clubs the children change coaches each year… but we have ours from day one, so when they start at comp at five (we know) we will have them right through until the end so we have that relationship with them,” she said.

“It’s a bit of fun, it’s not quite so serious and none of our kids seem to be under much pressure, so they just enjoy their competitions.”

The 2015 gymnastics season finished on last Saturday, but will start again early in the new year.