Gymnastics Nationals Provides Some Hope for ILT Stadium Southland

ILT Stadium Southland will host the New Zealand Gymnastics Championships 2022 as its marquee event next year.

Held from July 13 to 16 it is expected to bring about 1400 competitors, and the Invercargill Gymnastics club is currently fundraising to buy a new $100,000 sprung floor – which can be used at the event.

Committee member Neroli van Zoelen said if the funding is able to be provided in time, it will be used as the centre piece of the competition.

The existing club facility was more than 30 years old and the fundraising would also go towards other new equipment.

Invercargill last hosted the nationals back in 2016, and Stadium Southland general manager Nigel Skelt said a lot of work went into adapting the facility for the event back in 2014.

After talking to Gymnastics New Zealand, a series of anchor holds were put into the sprung floor for all of the equipment that was needed to set up for the national event.

Nigel said mobile seating was also able to be moved around the different events to create different audiences.

“We’re very excited about this event and it always has a fantastic audience.”

Southland Gymnastics had an extremely successful nationals this year with Lewis Thomson and Hannah Norris among those picking up medals.

“Southland very much punched above its weight,” Neroli said.

The team of 30 came away with six medals and three trophies – it’s biggest success ever in the national competition.

Holding a national event like this also provided some hope for accommodation providers in the city, but under current Covid conditions, anything could still happen.

The ongoing postponement and cancellation of events was starting to take its toll on Stadium Southland staff, with so much planning and replanning involved, Nigel said.

“We can only control the controllables.”

The latest postponement was the delay of Basketball New Zealand’s 3×3 NBL competition which was supposed to be held in Invercargill this month.

Nigel said they were still busy planning for many big local events heading into Christmas, including the SIT graduation, school leavers ball, and the Christmas Variety Concert.