Stunning photo of Western Australia's Janine Murray at the State Theatre in Perth.
In today's (13/06/2012) The West Australian newspaper and online (see here) and below, there is a lovely piece on WA's 2012 Olympian representative Janine Murray - on page 3 too!!! It talks about growing up in Zimbabwe and the relationship she has with her coach Krassimira Yurukova. And that photograph is absolutely stunning!
The glittering Olympic sport of rhythmic gymnastics is a world away from where Janine Murray grew up under the brutal regime of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.
But that is in the past and now Murray, 22, looks to her bright future as Australia's only competitor in the sport in London.
It is a dream she never thought possible when she fell in love with gymnastics at primary school in Harare.
Murray, who will be WA's first Olympian in rhythmic gymnastics and only the sixth for Australia, found that her four disciplines - ribbon, ball, hoop and clubs - also complemented her ballet skills.
"We never had great facilities in Zimbabwe, nothing like in Australia, but we always had great coaches, in my case Bulgarian gymnast Krassimira Yurukova, who still coaches me," Murray said.
"I underestimated my own ability in Australia because I came from a country where gymnastics did not have the same foundation or support."
Yurukova followed the Murray family to Australia a decade ago and the pair had their first big success when Murray won Commonwealth Games gold in Delhi in 2010,
She won two silver and a bronze medal at the Pacific Rim championships in Seattle this year.
"We have been able to remain close all these years," Murray said. "In the gym she is in charge but outside we are the best of friends."
She said Yurukova came from a culture where gymnasts had high profiles and were among the world's best.
"It has taken a long time to get to the Olympics and I am not thinking beyond the Games," Murray said.
But her future is definitely in sport. She is about to graduate with a sports science degree and is considering doing her masters.
She said life in Zimbabwe was all she knew as a child with constant shortages of basic foods and petrol, which made getting to school hard.
