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The first South African Championships took place in 2001 in Cape Town. At that time, the highest level was "D" grade. The folowing year the Championship was held in Johannesburg and the event was contested at "C" grade.
In 2003 this competition moved to Shongweni KZN.
After the first South African vaulter (Isaac Kesebile) was invited to compete at World Champs in Austria in 2004, the level improved dramatically and this was the turning point for vaulting SA. After this time many international coaches visited and gave clinics in South Africa.
SA Champs 2005
Cape Town
Winner of SA Champs 2005 - Gauteng team from RibaStables
Kyle Wasserfall, Jasyn Gertenbach, Lauren Puntis, Megan Taylor, Kayla Gertenbach, Cara Frew, Taryn Scheirer, Chelsey Gertenbach.
Junior Champion - Jasyn Gertenbach on Fantasy
Cadice Elston - adult champion 2005
South African Children Champion Cara Frew on Boet
SA Champs 2006
Port Elizabeth
Four provinces (Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, and Free State/ Northern Cape) contested the SA Vaulting Championships at Port Elizabeth in December 2006.
Not only did they enter the individual championships, and individual team (where 4 individual scores counts for one team) championships, but six mixed teams also competed (two at E level (walk/walk) and four for the D Grade (canter/walk) championship): in 2005, we had only two mixed teams!
There were not that many adult entries, but this is something that will improve over the next few years, as our juniors move up.
In South Africa there is no minimum age for entry as an individual vaulter, so there were large numbers of individual entries in the children’s classes. The Vaulters can compete in the Children Class until the end of their 15th year, and then change to juniors. At the end of their 18th year the individuals have to change to adults. Another difference from Europe is that there are relatively few vaulting horses in the country, so one horse may be shared by a number of individual vaulters and a mixed team. Another reason for the few mixed teams is that it’s very hard to find horses that are big and strong enough. Most of the horses are small thoroughbreds.
The vaulters and horses had to travel a long time. Some travelling more than 16 hours on their way to PE. Unfortunately there were few spectators most of them parents. But that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t good sport to see. Especially the B-level individuals showed very good compulsories and free styles and also the mixed teams were very enjoyable to watch. Unfortunately, in South Africa is only one canter team and they don’t have anybody to compete against. But hopefully that will change in the next few years.
Roland Boehlens’s second visit as a judge and to run clinics was highly valued and much appreciated. Unfortunately, because we can’t afford multiple plane tickets for overseas visitors, Roland ended up running a judges’ clinic right on top of the competition, and the local judges found it hard to assimilate all his input in time to apply it at the competition. Local organisers, too, have a lot to learn about setting up vaulting arenas, and we had to fight quite hard to get the arena looking respectable and feeling soft underfoot.
Individual Junior Team: Gauteng
Individual Children’s Team: Western Province
Mixed Team: 1st Gauteng (coach: Agata Pekala)
2nd Western Province (coach: Anja Traub)
3rd KwaZulu-Natal (coach: Gillian Elston)
4th Free State/ Northern Cape. (coach: Ilse de Villiers)
The best team of 2006 - Gauteng - Riba Stables
Lauren Puntis, Robyn Theron, Karla Hart, Raquel McHardy, Joelle Lismont, Julia Pitchford, lunger: Barbie Gertenbach, horse: Fantasy, coach: Agata Pekala.
individuals
South African junior male Champion - Jasyn Gertenbach on Fantasy
Eleni Stais the best child of 2006!
The best adult female - Lauren Lewthwaite
Kegan Smith - adult male champion 2006
The best junior female in 2006 - Cara Frew
And canter pairs Alexa Stais & Chelsey Gertenbach on Boet
This year walk pairs won Karla Hart & Joelle Lismont
SA Champs 2007
Shongweni KZN
The vaulting champs this year were characterised by a lot of rain, a good spirit, excellent facilities, and lame horses.
The first lame horse was KZN’s Flashdance, who failed the initial vetting. The KZN vaulters were immediately offered space on the Western Province and Riba Stables horses. The following day Fantasy, the bigger of the Riba Stables horses, was lame — fortunately for that day only. Some vaulters moved onto Boet, Riba’s smaller horse, and the judges arranged for the two biggest vaulters to be accommodated on the two privately-owned vaulting horses, Admiral and Palue for that day’s round.
Open Female Individual SA Champs
1st Megan Taylor (Gauteng)
2nd Eleni Stais (Gauteng)
Open Male Individual SA Champs
1st Jasyn Gertenbach (Gauteng)
2nd Kenhardt de Vry (Gauteng)
E Grade Mixed team
1st Soweto (Coach: Silke Jens)
2nd Western Province
3rd Western Province
D Grade Mixed team
1st Western Province
2nd Gauteng (Coach: Silke Jens)
C Grade Individual Children's team
1st Gauteng (Coach: Silke Jens)
2nd Western Province
The vaulting venue at Cambridge Fields was offered by Brett Lattimer, and comprised a huge and beautiful indoor arena with plenty of room for a competition arena and multiple warm-up arenas. As vaulting in South Africa develops, and the standard becomes higher, indoor competition arenas become more and more necessary, as it is very dangerous to run the risk of the horse spooking during a difficult move involving three vaulters at once. Seeing that it rained for three of the four days of the vaulting in Shongweni (and vaulting in the rain is much worse than riding in the rain), the indoor venue was doubly appreciated.
Above: Megan Taylor on Admiral
Below: Eleni Stais on Palue
Alexa Stais on Palue Chelsey Gertenbach on Boet
The C-grade Individual Children’s Team National Championship was contested by Gauteng (1st), Western Province (2nd), and Kwa-Zulu Natal (3rd). The D-Grade Mixed Team National Championship was contested by Western Province (1st) and Gauteng (2nd). KZN’s mixed team had to scratch as it could not be accommodated on the horses loaned to KZN: vaulting has strict rules about horse usage and the number of rounds that a horse may do in a day.
Above: Kenhardt de Vry
Left: Winner C Grade Individual
Robyn Theron with Enchanted
Fantasy
Jasyn Gertenbach
Lunger: Barbie Gertenbach
Taryn Rault on Boet
Above: Julia Pitchford on Boet
Ouma Ridard on Boet
Above: Nicole Masson on Boet
Left: Winners of the D Grade Open Individual
Siyabonga Ramodibe, Khensani Maluleke, Ofentse Makgatle (all from Gauteng) and Patrick Xosa (WP)
Below: Winner D Grade Children's event
Kelsey-Jo Baumann on Boet
Joelle Lismont on Boet- winner of the Children's C Grade
Various non-championship classes were also run. The E-grade Mixed Team was won by the Soweto Riding Club mixed team, ahead of Western Province’s two teams. The Soweto vaulters and supporters were absolutely delighted, as this is Soweto’s first ever mixed team and it was their first competition.
In the Walk Pairs class, pairs from Western Province came first and second, and Julia Pitchford and Joelle Lismont (Riba) came third.
Pairs
Above Right: Joelle Lismont and Julia Pitchford
Above: Nicole Masson and Taryn Rault
Far Right: Zoe Mosiah and Kelsey-Jo Baumann
The individual results were as follows:
D-grade children (male)
1st Ben Tainton (WP) 2nd Kevin Lock (WP)
D-grade children (female)
1st Kelsey-Jo Baumann (GHS) 2nd Joelle Lismont (GHS)
D-grade open (male)
1st Siyabonga Ramodibe (GHS) 2nd Kensani Maluleke (GHS)
D-grade open (female)
1st Natasha Miszewski (WP) 2nd Melissa Hayworth (KZN)
C-grade children (female)
1st Joelle Lismont (GHS) 2nd Kelsey-Jo Baumann (GHS)
C-grade open (female)
1st Robyn Theron (GHS) 2nd Melany Wood (KZN)
B-grade children (female)
1st Alexa Stais (GHS) 2nd Chelsey Gertenbach (GHS)
B-grade open (male)
1st Jasyn Gertenbach (GHS) 2nd Kenhardt de Vry (GHS)
B-grade open (female)
1st Megan Taylor (GHS) 2nd Eleni Stais (GHS)
Winners of the E Grade Mixed Team event.
TEAM SOWETO
Horse: Enchanted Fantasy
Lunger: Casper Mncube
Khensani Maluleke, Siyabonga Ramodibe, Lesego Ngidi, Amogelang Nombembe, Ofentse Makgatle, Musa Maluleke, Theodora Mafokate, Nqobile Ndluli, Karabo Mafokate
Winners of the 2007 D Grade Mixed team Championship
Western Province
Lunger: Patrick Xosa
Coach: Jill Romer
The vaulting was judged by Shelley Paveley (GHS), Hilde Ocenacik (WP), Gillian Elston (KZN), Silke Ceruti (GHS), and Helen Anderson (KZN); the international judge was Frank Spadinger (Austria), who also ran a judging and coaching clinic prior to the show.
It is good to see that vaulting is now healthily established in three of our provinces, with increasing numbers of vaulters being trained by young overseas coaches with international experience. For some years now our rules have required us to use an international judge at Champs, and the input from these visitors is improving the quality of our local judging and coaching. This year there were classes offered in four grades at our National Championships, from training to international level, all run indoors. Obviously we have a long way to go still: we need more horses, there are still some regions that have never yet sent vaulters to Champs, and FSNC does not always manage to send vaulters to Champs. But vaulting in South Africa is beginning to settle down as an established discipline, and this was made very clear at Shongweni.
Michèle duPlessis-Hay
International Judge - Frank Spadinger congratulating the Western Province Individual Children's team
Right: THE JUDGES !!!
Gillian Elston (KZN)
Theresa Scott (KZN)
Helen Anderson (KZN)
Frank Spadinger (AUSTRIA)
Hilde Ocenasek (WP)
Shelley Paveley (GAUTENG)
Winning Children's Individual Team
Lunger: Barbie Gertenbach
Kelsey-Jo Baumann
Joelle Lismont
Zoe Mosiah
Julia Pitchford
Reserve: Nicole Masson
Siyabonga - backflip !! Khensani - Swing !!
MORE AND MORE AND MORE PHOTOS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SA Champs (Lipizzaner Indoor Hall, Kyalami, 10–13 December)
In August the National Committee announced a change in the compulsories for the Mixed Team Championship, to something similar to the German A grade rather than the D-grade compulsories that had been used in 2007 and which had been formulated by Ulrike Rieder in 2004. This would have required a competence that only one of the potential provincial teams could have hoped to achieve. After a certain amount of discussion and consultation, the National Committee agreed to leave the Championship at the expected level, with the result that the SA Mixed Team Championship 2008 was, contested by a team from each of the four provinces that vault.
The competition was very close, with three of the teams scoring within 0.02 of each other. The freestyle routines were imaginative and well-choreographed and the level of difficulty was more advanced than before: it was pleasing to see that the Free State team, which is more isolated than the others, was competitive and made particularly good use of the various abilities of the team members.
The individual events also showed an increase in ability in the higher grades, and the females in particular showed some very pleasing vaulting. In the lower levels, the freestyles were much more inventive and difficult than we saw at the same levels a few years back.
Clearly vaulting in South Africa is beginning to settle down and establish itself, and it was especially pleasing to see that mixed team vaulting is now a central part of SA Champs.
Unfortunately, we did not invite an international judge this year due to financial restraints: all classes were judged by judges from the South African National Panel: Gillian Elston, Hilde Ocenacek, Shelley Paveley and Silke Ceruti.
Western Province unfortunately lost their vaulting horse earlier in the year - most of the vaulters were accommodated on horses from Riba Stables and 3 individuals vaulted on a pony from River Park.
Congratulations go to these individuals and team members for their excellent results as they were the only vaulters competing on strange horses.
