Four days of non-stop gymnastics have ended in Invercargill today.

In aerobics, rhythmic, mens’ and women’s artistic, and trampoline gymnastics, forty-three prize givings have seen more than 1,500 medals awarded across 230-odd events within the championships. Though amongst all those medals, was only one perfect score.

Men’s artistic level 4 athlete Sean Dawson representing Whanganui/Manawatu earned a perfect score of 12.000 for his vault on Wednesday. The 10-year-old from Fielding trains at Manawatu Gymsports and was ‘pretty happy’ with his perfect score.

“It felt really good and I knew it would be high 11, but I didn’t expect a 12.000.” says Sean.

Long gone are the days of a perfect 10. Artistic gymnastics scores are made up of two components—a score for the degree of difficulty, and a score out of ten for execution. Sean’s degree of difficulty was 2.0 and his perfect execution landed him a 10.0, totaling his perfect score of 12.000.

One judge commented that his lines were perfect and he landed like a feather. Sean then scored an 11.900 for his second vault. “I swung my arms when I landed my second vault, so I knew that wasn’t going to be a perfect score,” says Sean, albeit close to it. Sean and twin brother Harry have been doing gymnastics for three and a half years, with this being their first nationals. Harry also picked up a couple of medals.

In the senior international competition, some of the 2022 national champions named are Olympians Maddie Davidson and Dylan Schmidt taking out the trampoline titles, and Birmingham 2022-bound Havana Hopman, the national rhythmic gymnastics title for another year. World championship athletes Brooke Davies and Reece Cobb took the aerobics and women’s artistic titles respectively, with Ben Stein taking the men’s artistic gymnastics title.

2022 National Champions

Aerobics
Brooke Davies – Otago (Astra Gymnastics)
Men’s artistic
Ben Stein – Auckland (Tri Star Gymnastics)
Women’s artistic
Reece Cobb – Wellington (Capital Gymnastics)
Rhythmic
Havana Hopman – Gymsports Manukau (Counties Manukau Gymnastics)
Trampoline
Women: Madaline (Maddie) Davidson – Canterbury (Olympia Gymnastic Sports)
Men: Dylan Schmidt – Gymsports Manukau (Icon Trampoline)
Double mini trampoline
Women: Braida Thomas – Canterbury (Ice Trampoline)
Men: Campbell Robertson – Canterbury (Ice Trampoline)
Tumbling
Women: Emma Tindale – Bay of Plenty (Mid Island Gym Sportss)
Men: Lachie Kirk – Hawkes Bay/Poverty Bay (Ricochet Trampoline)

On-demand viewing of the event is available at bit.ly/watchnzgymchamps2022.

Ends.

More information

Anna Robertson
Media and Broadcasting
M +64 21 424 938
anna.robertson@gymnasticsnz.com