Kiwi gymnasts target elusive medal

Kiwi gymnast Mark Holyoake. Photo / Greg Bowker

New Zealand's best shot at a first Commonwealth Games' team gymnastics medal has been threatened by an unreliable Delhi transport system and a shoulder injury to a top performer.

New Zealand has had one male medallist in the history of the Games - a bronze to current men's coach David Phillips in the floor routine at Kuala Lumpur in 1998. This campaign aims to make amends.

Kiwi teams have come fourth twice - in 1990 at Auckland and 1978 at Edmonton.

The men's team consists of Mark Holyoake (27), Patrick Peng (21) and Misha Koudinov (19), who went to the 2006 Melbourne Games as well as Matt Palmer (24) and Brandon Field (18) who are attending their first.

Peng and Koudinov are classed as all-rounders, while Field is useful on the floor and vault and Palmer is resilient on the rings.

Holyoake's specialities are the parallel bars and pommel horse. He holds a Guinness world record in the latter event, completing 63 revolutions - using both legs - in a minute.

Four of the five-man team will compete on each apparatus. The best three scores count in the team competition but there are an overall individual title and medals in each separate discipline.

Regardless of their pedigree, the effort to compete at the Indira Gandhi complex - named after the 1984-assasinated Prime Minister - is significant.

Phillips is already dismayed at the frequency of the bus services and the limited chance of a punctual arrival at venues.

"Transport has been a shocker; it has complicated the way we organise ourselves. Everything was meant to gel and work in with bus transfers but that hasn't been the case - there have been delays."

Holyoake agrees it has caused problems: "Yesterday was a pain, the bus didn't turn up for 30 minutes which meant our final training session was cut short. Hopefully it means we're refreshed."

Complicating matters for the team is the shoulder injury to all-round contender Peng. Medical staff are working frantically to get him ready. His absence will debilitate their chances, yet Phillips says it is nothing dramatic and needs to be put in context.

"Everyone is carrying niggles, they're never completely healthy."

The team is doing their best to compensate, especially with a couple of qualified Pilates instructors - Phillips and Holyoake - in camp.

"We have used Pilates to recover," Holyoake says. "David didn't want to be seen as the enemy so he made me take the classes."

Phillips says it has helped offset a hectic schedule, including the beautification of the village.

"We've been training twice a day, then refuelling and resting. There has been little downtime."

Holyoake says other pastimes have been pursued.

"[Fellow team member] Matt Palmer brought over a cricket bat, so we've been playing by the pool in the village. He and Patrick brought six tennis balls but have lost four..."

New Zealand has been practising at the venue the last four days. It seats 15,000 which Phillips says makes it an "eye- opener" when the highest normal competition crowd is a 2000 at national championships.

Today will be the first day of the team competition, yet medals are decided. The top 24 gymnastics all-rounders go on to compete in each individual discipline later in the Games. The top eight-ranked competitors also get a shot at winning each event.

Australia and England are the gold and silver favourites but New Zealand is expected to contest for bronze with Canada, Cyprus and India.