OUR COVER
Didn’t matter
that he was small
Pocket gymnast broke a 24-year medal
drought for Australia at the Games
PINT-SIZE gymnast
Christopher Remkes,
21, became the Filipino-
Australian community’s
first Commonwealth
Games gold medallist
at the 2018 Games in
Brisbane on Monday,
April 9, 2018.
Remkes, of Adelaide SA, follows only
one other Filipino-Australian, champion
golfer Jason Day of Queensland, to earn the
distinction of sitting at the very top his sport
internationally for Australia.
Standing a mere 147cm or barely 4ft 9in
tall, Remkes charged into the gymnastics
vault event final at Coomera Indoor Sports
Centre to take the gold medal.
In doing so, he broke a 24-year
Commonwealth Games vault drought for his
nation, which was last won by an Australian
in 1994 when Bret Hudson triumphed.
When contacted by AK NewsMag on
Facebook, Remkes had this message of
inspiration to readers: “Just keep being you
and that's all there is t
o it really. Do
what you feel is right because it's only you
who can make a change no one else can do
it for you”
Remkes was adopted from an
orphanage in the Philippines by an
Australian couple, Mike and Dora Remkes of
Adelaide, when he was only two years old.
He had been abandoned at a hospital in
Bacolod.
The Remkes raised young Christopher
as a child in South Australia’s Happy Valley,
a suburb of Adeliade, and was introduced to
gymnastics at five years of age.
He attended Aberfoyle Park primary
school, and later Ascot Park primary which
maintained a specialist gymnastics program.
He went to Hamilton Secondary College
before moving to the Australian Institute of
Sport in Canberra in 2015.
Being the shortest athlete at the
Commonwealth Games 2810 – male or
female – didn’t faze Remkes.
In fact, he took a positive spin on it.
“My height is almost like a super power,”
he was quoted in the press as saying.
“I’m lucky to have the build I have; it
means I can go fast in the air.”
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND INFORMATION
ON CHRISTOPHER REMKES FROM THE
GYMNASTICS AUSTRALIA WEBSITE.
Since first competing at the Australian
Championships in 2012, Christopher
Remkes has moved up through the national
ranks, breaking through for his first gold
medal in 2013 to become the Australian
level-10 champion on Pommel Horse.
It was this effort that allowed him to
represent Australia at the Australian Youth
Olympic Festival and was part of the team
that secured a bronze medal.
Making the jump up to Senior
International level at the 2014 National
Championships, Remkes rose to the
occasion to win gold on vault, earning a
chance to represent Australia again, this
time at the 2014 World Championships in
Nanning, China.
Since that first Senior Gold at national
level, the diminutive Remkes has been
a crowd favourite and podium regular,
with his medal tally currently standing at
five Senior Apparatus Gold’s among 10
individual medals.
Over the past few years, Chris has been
collecting a lot of valuable international
experience, including two World
Championships, and his results on vault are
starting to reflect his supreme talent and top
work rate.
In early 2017, he won silver on vault at
the inaugural Melbourne World Cup before
going on to represent Australia at the AGF
trophy in Baku, where his performance
was the highlight of the meet for Australia,
winning gold in the vault final.
Chris nailed the execution on both of
vaults, including a flawless tsuk double pike
- to finish with an average total score of
14.866.
To consolidate his remarkable 2017
performances, Remkes claimed gold on
vault at the second Melbourne World Cup in
February 2018. n
**Photos used with permission**
Saving our reefs
THE Philippine Consulate General
in Sydney informs the Filipino
community leaders and Filipino
community media in NSW of a
promotional campaign of the
International Year of Reef (IYOR)
2018.
The first IYOR was declared in 1997
in response to increasing threat on coral
reefs and associated ecosystems such as
mangroves and sea grasses around the
world.
www.kalatas.com.au
The theme of this year's promotion
is ‘Saving our reefs through real and
impactual solutions – protecting our reefs
through education and capacity-building”.
The promotion also highlights
Philippine efforts to implement the
designation of the Tubbataha Reefs Natural
Park (TRNP) as a particularly densitive sea
area (PSSA) with an area to be avoided
(ATBA).
Organisations may wish to conduct
promotional awareness activities in
observance of IYOR 2018 to encourage
public awareness on coral reef protection,
bring together supporters of the ocean
resources conservation, and to implement
promotional activities to encourage
support to this year-long global event. n
AK NewsMagazine, Vol 8 No 8 | MAY 2018
03