Honiball excels in SA Cup

NAMIBIA’S top male gymnast Robert Honiball excelled at the SA Cup international gymnastics competition in Centurion, South Africa, by winning five medals and finishing second overall.

Honiball was Namibia’s sole representative at the competition which saw gymnasts from the host nation South Africa, Great Britain, Malaysia, New Zealand and Romania also in action.On the first day of the competition, on November 6, Honiball finished third overall in the individual all-round competition, behind the overall winner from Romania and the second placed gymnast from Great Britain. A gymnast from South Africa followed in fourth position, while a Malaysian gymnast came fifth.According to Honiball, the spectators were very surprised to see a Namibian gymnast defeating the top gymnasts from South Africa.’Knowing that I had made a determined comeback to the sport after my succession of injuries, South African coaches and judges along with fellow South African gymnasts applauded my return as one of the top gymnasts of the day, but the spectators were very surprised that I beat the top South African gymnasts,’ he said.Honiball also qualified for four of the six apparatus finals, namely the pommel horse, the rings, the parallel bars and the high bar.Honiball came third overall on the vault, despite only doing one vault and not the customary two.’To qualify for the vault apparatus finals, it is required that a gymnast does two vaults. Since I’m still taking it easy on my legs after my injuries, I chose to do only one vault during the competition, which meant that I could not go through on vault for the apparatus finals,’ he said. On November 7 Honiball competed in the apparatus finals, where he first won a bronze medal on the pommel horse.He received stiff competition from a Romanian gymnast in his favourite event, the rings, and went on to win the silver medal, finishing just behind the Romanian.Honiball’s best performance came in his third apparatus finals on the parallel bars where he won the gold medal.He nearly matched that performance in the fourth apparatus final on the high bar where he was pipped into second place by a mere 0,2 points by the British gymnast, giving him his second silver medal of the day.At the award ceremony, Honiball walked away with the second most medals at the competition, namely five in total.Anton Hudson of Great Britain finished first overall with six medals (two gold, two silver and two bronze), while Honiball won five medals (one gold, two silver and two bronze). Alin Sandu Jivan of Romania finished third overall with four bronze medals.Honiball thanked the Namibian Gymnastic Federation for its financial support, saying that he was proud to represent Namibia.’I am grateful and honoured to have been in a position where I could do my country proud and place Namibia back on the charts of international competitive gymnastics.God willing, my next goal is to represent Namibia at the African Championships that will be taking place in Walvis Bay, February next year, and to represent Namibia at next year’s Commonwealth Games, to be held in India,’ he said. www.namibiasport.com.na