Indee Sparkman takes home gold at Special Olympics Australian National Games

The Special Olympics Australian National Games were held in Launceston over the weekend, with Carnamah-born Indee Sparkman taking home gold. Held every four years, the National Games is the premier sports event in Australia for people with intellectual disabilities and a key pathway for athletes to represent Australia at the Special Olympics World Games. Athletes competed across 10 events with traditional sports such as athletics and swimming on offer but also some outside the traditional Olympic norms, including bocce and tenpin bowling. Most athletes relied on donations to help make their way to the games, with supporters raising more than $4000 to help Sparkman able to compete. Sparkman, competing for Team Victoria, took part in division two of the women’s gymnastics all-around competition as athletes competed across the four disciplines of vault, bars beam and floor, with medals on offer for each individual event as well as the overall winner. Sparkman narrowly missed out in the vault finishing outside the medals by just 0.57 of a point. She was off the pace in the bars and beam but completed a fantastic floor routine to take home the gold with a score of 18.19 — just 0.18 ahead of the silver medal. She finished with an overall score of 68.93, less than two points outside the overall medal positions.