On 15 June 2019, Tinika Gordon, athlete for Defianz Calisthenics, qualified to represent South Africa at the Street Workout World Championships to be held in Moscow, Russia, on 27 July 2019. In doing so, Tinika will be the first female athlete to represent South Africa in the sport.
Referred to affectionately as Tenatious T, or “Class rep”, Tinika is the very definition of dynamite coming in small packages. She began her Calisthenics/Street Workout journey in 2016 after watching a video of Frank Medrano and decided she wanted to be that strong and do the cool things he was doing. She joined Defianz Calisthenics, barely able to do a single pull up, and so began her indomitable conquest of the sport.
Calisthenics/Street Workout is a lesser known but steadily growing sport within the South African context and female athletes are largely underrepresented within the sport. Tinika and the rest of the female team members from Defianz Calisthenics are determined to change that. By competing on the World Stage in July, Tinika hopes to gain some traction for females in the calisthenics community locally, proving that women can also be competitive in the male dominated sport.
Despite being an exceptional athlete, Tinika never expected to be offered to opportunity to compete internationally, but with enough support from our local communities, we are hoping to send her across the globe to do South Africa proud.
View more images from the day here.