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Hi! This is the story of how I became a gymnast and wound up representing Zimbabwe at the All Africa Games. The story starts when I was born. I was given the name Alexandra Shungudzo Meridith Mary Carita Govere. Alexandra is my mom's middle name. It is a name that has come down through my maternal family since at least 1722. My mom use to do gymnastics too and because I have one (actually 2) of her names, I think I am la ot like her. We have many of the same interests. My second name, Shungudzo, means to be determined. It was given to me by my aunt because I had been so determined to live, when I was expected not to, because I was born with a lung problem. Because of that I was sick a lot when I was young. It is one of the reasons why my mother put me in ballet class and started to train me in gymnastics, so that I could build up my strength. I also wanted to do ballet and gymnastics, but more on that later.

My next name Meridith is after my aunt who is a very creatiive. Mary is my Grandmother's name and she was a ballet dancer. Carita (Landry) is the name of my Great Great Aunt she was a musician. Govere is my last name. It has a special meaning too. I also call myself Sasha Muis d'Entremont mainly for ballet, because I think it is a good name for a ballerina. Sasha is one of my nick-names and I am a descendant of the Muis d' Entremont family. I wish I also had a Mi'Kmaq name.

We did not live near a gym, there are only I think 4 gyms in all of Zimbabwe, so my mom started to train me at home.   My balance beam was made from strips of tape put on the floor marking out dimensions of a real beam. Our sofa had nice long wooden arms, so I would get up on them and practice a beam move like a jump or balance, and I would also dismount from them on to a small mat we had. I valuated over piled up coach pillows and learned floor routines on the lawn marked with rocks to the size of a real gym floor.   I had a tree branch that I used as a bar. In my village in Bikita, I learned the dances of both the men and women.   I also learned rhythm, elegance of movement, and good balance in the village. Since I was three I did this unknowingly, trying to imitate the elegant walk of the women in the village as they carried water in large buckets on their heads without touching the bucket and never spilling a drop! In ballet class I learned grace and a love of classical music.

I started competing in 1993 when I was six. At my first competition I had never even been on a real piece of apparatus. The organizers of the competition let me come about an hour early to try the equipment. It was a national competition with 72 competitors from the novice, intermediate and advanced categories. I was in the novice section and I placed third in the individual.   No one knew of me before then and I was so tiny I looked like I was 4. Everyone was very surprised at me, I was surprised too!   See pictures below.

My mom worked at Prince Edward School (PE). One of the boys in my mom's 6th Form science class was Erasmus Garaka. She also taught him in Form1. Erasmus as a 1991 Bronze medalist in the All Africa Games. He suggested that I should come to Queen Elizabeth school and train under him, so I went. That school canceled its gymnastics program, so Erasmus said I could train with the PE boys, which he was also now coaching, so I did. I started to compete with the PE team. I think I am the first girl to be on a PE team because PE is a boy's high school, then my friends from Groombridge School, Alexandra and Amanda Zalomuis joined me and the three of us competed with the PE team. We gave our self the name the Gym Academy, and soon the Allan Wilson students who trained with us joined the Gym Academy (see our picture below). With the AW boys in our club, we now had even a stronger team and we won a lot!

My family moved to Mount Pleasant in Harare, and it was difficult for me to train now with the PE boys.   Also they did not have girls equipment. My coach was a team-mate of the coach at Hellenic School, Greg Noach. I tried out for a place on his competitive team and got it. The school was about a 45 minute walk away from my house. I walked with my nanny who would drop me off there. My mom would walk over after work and we would walk home.

Some of the girls at this gym were not nice to me. They teased me about my hair, and said my nose was too big and my skin was too dark, otherwise they said I would be pretty. I started to wonder if there was something wrong with me and I felt ugly. This never happened to me before so I was confused about a lot of things. I started to notice that I was the only girl at this club who was Black. Until then I did not even think about the color of my skin.   I told my mom that these girls were teasing me and she told the coach so they hardly teased me any more. My mom made me understand that I was good, very good, and that those girls must have felt bad about themselves, otherwise they would not need to try to make others feel like they were not good. In a couple of years I was now with the top group in the gym, and the other girls I started with were behind me. The girls in this group were nice to me.   One of them (Shay Boddington) is now on the Zimbabwe diving team. Another girl, Anna Batista got a gold medal in Arobisport. I am the only one in that group who stayed a gymanst.

Then I came to the States, but the gym I went to did not have a competitive team. I was discouraged because I had already been competing for 3 years in Zimbabwe. In some areas I was more advanced than the girls there, but on the bars I was behind. At my gym in Zimbabwe we did not have a standing set of bars, only one bar that was not always put up because we trained in a school hall. About a year later, when my mom got a car, she took me to the Academy, which was an hour away. I tried out and I was put in the Level 6 training group and told that I would still have to compete at level 5.

I was happy at the new gym the coaches believed in me, and my team mates were so nice! I started to get to do some more advanced skills like I had done in Zimbabwean, but discovered that I had to re-learn most of my tumbling skills like tucks and twisting because I could no longer do them. I could even barely do a flick now and that was embarrassing, especially in front of those girls at the Academy, they were so good!   I then competed Level 5 in the fall and started training level six to compete in the spring.   However, just before the competition season, I fractured my big toe in 3 places and was out of the season except for the last two meets. I then competed level six in the fall and was having a good season, but then I got pneumonia and was out of training for a month. Somehow I managed to qualify for Level Six State. I went to State. I knew that I could medal on the beam and floor, and maybe even place on the vault, but bars I knew would keep me from getting a medal all around. I was determined to do my best on bars anyway, I tried hard in warm-ups to improve my bars, but instead I hit my foot on the high bar and came crashing down during my dismount. I was scared I would break my neck, so I put my arm out to protect my neck and head, but I wound up with a stress fracture in my arm! I could not compete and it also meant I could not compete level 7 as that season was to start in the next month.

There I was out again! I knew the All Africa Games were coming up and I wanted to qualify. I did not think I could now. I was out of training for several months.   This was very bad because I really wanted to go to the AAG, it had been my dream since I was 8 and ran scores at the 1995 AAG. At the end of the season I got in 2 meets. In the first one I only competed floor and beam and I placed 3th and 4th respectively. I thought that was good because I only had a week training.   Then a few weeks later I went to the final meet of the season, which is called the Emerald Team Challenge, and teams from all over the North West come to Oregon and compete.

I had a bad meet. On the floor I was expecting to medal or place, but instead I fell and I messed up my rhythm and the rest of my routine was off. I got a 8.05, that was a shock! It was made worse because the competition was put on by my gym so everyone was there cheering for me, in fact everyone in Oregon it seemed was cheering for me. I saw girls from other Oregon teams cheering me on, it never happened like that to me before. I was not use to being cheered like that. They had confidence in me, but I started to feel too pressured, I lost my focus and had a hard time even hearing the music they were cheering and shouting my name so loud. When it was over I saluted the judges and walked off the floor and then started crying! I felt like I let everyone down.   I also knew a poor performance might spoil my chances for the AAG. It was a long time before I stopped crying. The next event was vault. I was still crying as I sprinted down to the vault. I knew my vault was ok, but not as good as it could have been. I got an 8.55. I went to bars, all of a sudden, I was terrified to get on the high bar, I was afraid of falling off again. I wanted not to do bars. I had to do it for my team though and also my coach was one of the judges. I did not want to embarrass her so I did the bars, I even managed a dismount. I think I got a 6.8. Not good, but I felt ok with that under the circumstances because I conquered my fears. Next was the beam, I think I got a 8.85. Well not good enough to medal or place. A number of girls had scores over 9.0.   I decided that considering I had only 3 weeks training that all in all I had done pretty good, but I was worried about if I would be in the AAG.

All along my mom had been sending pictures of me doing gym, scores, and stuff to the Zimbabwe Amateur Gymnastics Association (ZAGA). As it turned out, they decided to submit my name to the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee in April so that I could compete for Zimbabwe at the All Africa Games. I was stunned because I did not think I had a chance. In July the word came that I had been appointed to the national team and I would need to leave for Johannesburg at the end of Auguest. In the mean time my coaches had been preparing me for the games in case I was chosen. Even when my arm was fractured I worked on the soft beam on the floor. I could not tumble on the beam, but I learned some C and D moves on the beam. On the floor I worked on a triple turn and some other turns and jumps. I could not vault or tumble on the floor, but I was still making some progress and staying in shape.

After the Emerald Team Challenge in April, I started trying those C and D moves on the high beam with a spot. I also started learning ariels and some other moves. I worked on a new mount and dismount. On the floor I started working layouts again, now with a twist. My knee started hurting me. The doctor. said it was tendinitis, but he mis-diagnosed. On the vault I went back to working a Tsukahara tuck that I had started to learn before Level 6 State.   On bars I was a mess. I was too sacred to cast to handstand or try giants any more or even work the high bar. My knee kept getting worse. Two weeks before I had to leave I went to Umpqua Valley Gymnastics to work with one of my coaches (Khumbulani Moyo) from Zimbabwe that was coaching there.   He is a specialist in the vault and he helped me land my vault again and I was feeling ok about it. Somehow when I went back to my own gym four days later, I could not land it again. Anyway the time passed and I had to go. Moyo arranged so that I could train in Portland for a couple of days before I left.   I felt ok with the beam and floor, but I could not seem to still land my vault. My bars were not steady although my last day in Portalnd I was now casting to handstand.   It made me feel a little better about the bars.

I arrived a week before the Games began. All of a sudden I had a new coach, Karim Othmani, he was pretty nice. My knee was getting worse and worse. I could not do my vault, so someone else vaulted. I tried to do the bars. What I did was good, but it did not meet with the requirements, so I was off the bars. I had to sit out of a day of training because my knee was so painful. I started going to physical therapy at the Games Village. Next thing I know I was in the podium competition. That was good because it gave me a little experience before the real competition.   I knew I could not win anything at these games. I was competing against much older girls with greater skills and lots of international experiences. Some of them had been to the Commonwealth Games and were headed for the Worlds after the AAG. I did want to go and gain international experience, and I set the goal of being the best on the balance beam for Zimbabwe. I met my goal to be the first girl on my team on the beam and in the process I placed 17 on the beam of all the girls from Africa and 20th on the floor. I was proud of myself, I met my goal. I was the youngest on my team and maybe the youngest artistic gymnasts there from all of Africa, so I was scared and homesick because I had never been away from family and friends before.   I was scared to fly alone from the West coast of USA to Johannesburg, South Africa. I had an overnight layover in Miami, so I spent the night there with my mom's friend Claudia. Her mother is Egyptian. She had been my mom's friend since she was 12. She is now my friend too!   I am so glad now I went to these games.

I came home and went back to the Doctor. They did an x-ray and the Dr said my knee cap was deformed. I was sent to a specialist. The specialist said that part of my knee cap had eroded away, but not too worry, it will build itself back up because I am young. However, I can not do gymnastics or dance for a while. I am just waiting. In the mean time this is kind of good. I started grade nine, (form 2) at a new school this September, and instead of leaving school at 12:oo pm to go for training, I get to stay and make friends. I also had a lot of homework to catch up on!   So I had the chance to do that too. I have been thinking to that since my coach wants me to quit ballet and train full time as a gymnast that I may switch to rhythmic gymnastics because I will still be able to study ballet as part of the training. I love dancing ballet too. Well I guess I just have to wait now till my knee is better and I think I will then try rhythmics, and then decide to be a rhythmic or artistic gymnast.

Alexandra S. Govere      November, 1999

The Gymnastics Academy. The boy in the second row with red and black jacket with a white patch is Peter Paradza. He was at was at the AAG with me competing as a gymanst for Zimbabwe. I am in the back row left with my friends Alexandra and Amanda Zalounis.

Here I am at the National School Grades Competition. This was my second competion. I placed third over all. There is my coach Greg Noach in the green and yellow jacket watching me on the beam.

How I Became a Gymnast

Here I am at my first Competition in 1993 marching to the floor

Getting third place all around in my first competition