The undersigned of this petition ask the National Sports Museum in Melbourne, Australia, to include within their world class displays a recognition of Australia's participants in gymnastics disciplines.

A tour of the National Sports Museum at the MCG by a small group of sports fans in March 2010 brought to light the fact that no recognition was given within the collections (or the Spirit of Sport/Hall of Fame section) to Australian gymnasts who have taken part in Olympic and/or World Championship competition. The museum displays included video footage of Nadia Comaneci (1976 Gold medallist from Romania) and a picture of 2006-2008 Australian women's national champion Daria Joura in the Game On! interactive section, but otherwise no mention of Australian Olympic or World Champion gymnasts.

Documentary evidence dating back to 1956 shows that Australia has been an active participant in gymnastics sports - Men's and Women's Artistic Gymnastics, Rhythmic Gymnastics and Trampolining - at the Olympic level. Furthermore, Australia boasts an Olympic trampoline medallist (Ji Wallace - Silver, Sydney 2000) and top-8 team finishes in the women's gymnastics at the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games. Australia even boasts a female athlete who competed at two Olympic Games in two different sports (Alexandra Croak - Artistic Gymnastics, Sydney 2000; Platform Diving, Beijing 2008) who is at present not recognised on the museum's wall of 'multi-discipline' athletes. Within the past 10 years, Australian capital cities have played host to Olympic, Commonwealth Games and World Championship gymnastic competitions.

Artistic Gymnastics in particular has proved to be a strong foundation for numerous other sports in which this country has had Olympic success, including diving, aerial skiing and pole vaulting.


From 2001-2009, Australia has achieved the following world-class results in gymnastics discplines:

* A World Champion in Men's Artistic:
Philippe Rizzo, 2006 Horizontal Bar gold medal
(twice named Australian Institute of Sport Athlete of the Year)

* Artistic World Championship silver medals on individual apparatus:
Philippe Rizzo - 2001 Horizontal Bar
Prashanth Sellathurai - 2006 Pommel Horse
Lauren Mitchell - 2009 Balance Beam and Floor Exercise

* Artistic World Championship bronze medals individually and as teams:
Australia - 2003 Women's Team
Monette Russo - 2003 Women's Team and 2005 All-Around
Prashanth Sellathurai - 2009 Men's Pommel Horse

* Female gymnasts placing in the top-10 individually at World Championships
Monette Russo - 3rd 2005
Lauren Mitchell- 4th 2009
Daria Joura - 5th 2006 and 10th 2007
Hollie Dykes - 7th 2006
Allana Slater - 9th 1999

* Women's Artistic teams ranking in the top 8 in Olympic Games:
7th - Sydney 2000
8th - Athens 2004
6th - Beijing 2008 (qualification rank 5th)

* Female gymnasts placing in the top 10 individually in Olympic Games:
Lisa Skinner - 8th All-Around and Floor, Sydney 2000
Allana Slater - 10th All-Around and 8th Beam, Athens 2004


* World Cup Gold Medallists in Gymnastics Disciplines:
* Allana Slater (women's artistic)
* Jacqui Dunn (women's artistic)
* Daria Joura (women's artistic)
* Lauren Mitchell (women's artistic)
* Philippe Rizzo (men's artistic)
* Prashanth Sellathurai (men's artistic)
* Keiran Gorman (men's sport aerobics)
* Lauren Farry (women's sport aerobics)
* Scott Brown (men's trampoline)
* Ben Wilden (men's trampoline)


These are just some of the international achievements by Australian gymnasts we hope the National Sports Museum will recognise in future. Artistic Gymnastics frequently ranks in the 'Top 5' most-watched sports at Olympic competition, and it is disappointing not to see it recognised among such a diverse collection of sports memorabilia.