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Six elite clubs compete in the CaliChamp state championships at St Kilda's Palais Theatre on Sunday, with Regent Calisthenic College aiming for its first title since reopening in 2009.
Six of the state's best calisthenics clubs will contest the CaliChamp state championships on Sunday at the Palais Theatre in St Kilda. Regent Calisthenic College is among them, chasing its biggest prize since the club was revived in 2009 after a 12-year closure.
Sophie Day, a Regent performer, says the sport suffers from a recognition problem. When she tells people her hobby is calisthenics, the usual response is a puzzled look and the question: what is that? We need a Netflix series to put us on the map, Day says. She promises a documentary capturing the hard-slog rehearsals, the backstage drama and the impeccable hair, make-up and spray tans would be a good watch.
Calisthenics Recognition and Training Demands
Calisthenics is a physically demanding team sport invented locally and passed down through families. It combines dance with acrobatics, marching and the use of apparatus such as rods and clubs. The standards and sacrifices required at senior level can be brutal. Day has driven a round trip of 220 kilometres from her Geelong home to Boronia, where her team trains, three times this week.
Training with Regent can run for up to four hours, meaning she sometimes gets home at 11.30pm. She hopes the effort pays off on Sunday, when Regent takes on five other clubs in the most elite level, CaliChamp. It is the calisthenics equivalent of the AFL grand final, with fierce rivalry and sky-high expectations. Sometimes things happen that are out of your control.
At last year's event, Siena Tainsh of Ceres Calisthenics Club injured her knee while performing on stage. Tainsh, a model and the girlfriend of North Melbourne AFL player Zane Duursma, has recovered and will compete this Sunday. Unlike mainstream sports such as the AFL, where players earn six and seven-figure salaries, elite calisthenics participants do it for the love and hold down day jobs. Day, who has been involved since she was five, works as a police custody officer.
Regent's Championship Push and Financial Costs
She estimates she spends about $3000 annually to take part in the sport. Having moved to Geelong from Mount Gambier in 2021, Day joined Regent despite the long drives after admiring the passion and artistry of the club's routines, which she watched online. Brooke Synnott, Regent's co-principal, says her club is probably in the best position to win on Sunday since its revival in 2009 after a 12-year closure. Regent was runner-up at last year's state championships.
Out of the three major senior competitions so far this year, Regent has won one and finished second in another. The club's history runs deep. Brooke's grandmother, the late Enid Feltham, founded Regent in Balwyn, in Melbourne's east, in 1939. Enid taught for 58 years before retiring.
In the last 20 of those years, her daughter Diane Synnott coached the senior team to 18 wins at the then pinnacle South Street competitions in Ballarat. By 1997 the pair were exhausted, says Brooke, and folded the club.
A Club Reborn Through Family Tradition
Then aged 16, Brooke says she was devastated but forged a successful career in dance and musicals. In 2009, Brooke and Diane decided to reopen Regent. Brooke said she wanted to try teaching and also says it was in the blood. A win this Sunday would be hugely satisfying for everyone who has been with us since we reopened, she says.
Rachel Fenton, a Regent Calisthenic College senior coach, is pictured with Day in her freearm costume in St Kilda. Team members Darci Gurney, Jayna Soh and April Henwood also feature among the club's ranks. A photograph from around 2008 shows Day competing in calisthenics in Mount Gambier, South Australia, at age five. Another shows her at her day job as a police custody officer.
Tainsh appears with Duursma at the 2024 Brownlow Medal night. Regent's family tradition is captured in a 2012 photo of founder Enid Feltham with her daughter Diane Synnott and granddaughter Brooke Synnott. The club now hopes that lineage delivers a state title on Sunday.
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brisbanetimes:‘We need a Netflix series’: Calisthenics competitors warm up for their grand final dayThis story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
Calisthenics Calichamp Regent Calisthenic College State Championships Sophie Day Calichamp State Championships Palais Theatre
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