Eliza Gower leotard

2001 Eliza Gower with rope photoshoot.

In 1978, Rhythmic Sportive Gymnastics as a group competition was introduced into the Queensland Girls Secondary Schools Sports Association (QGSSSA) Gymnastics competition. Girls Grammar entered groups in both apparatus: Ribbon and Ball, under the captaincy of Gretel Bakker (1978). However, the first success came in the form of a pennant in Hoop in 1980 and this was soon followed by our first “clean sweep” in all apparatus in 1982. During the early years of this QGSSSA sport, it was a branch of the Artistic Gymnastics competition where it gained sufficient notoriety to be given status as an individual report in the 1981 School magazine. Its growing popularity led to Rhythmic Gymnastics splitting from Artistic Gymnastics when it was allocated its own competition in 1984 – the year Rhythmic Gymnastics was included in the Olympics. In this same year, the competition expanded to include Ribbon, Ball and Hoop. In 1987, a Combination format – ball and hoop – was introduced into the competition as another group.