Rifda Irfanaluthfi, Indonesia’s first Olympic gymnast, hopes to inspire a nation in Paris
- Her qualification is a ‘groundbreaking moment’, says her coach, as she has had to deal with a tough beginning and a conservative environment
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‘The world will know my country’: Indonesia’s first Olympic gymnast sets her sights on Paris
It was hours after being admitted to a hospital in Belgium following a sharp landing from the uneven bars that Rifda Irfanaluthfi learned she had become the first Indonesian gymnast to qualify for the Olympics.
In the back of an ambulance, the 24-year-old had been furiously firing off messages.
“I kept asking my manager, my coach and my friends. I texted them one by one to ask: Did I qualify?” she recalled.
The morning after sustaining the injury, Rifda received the news that she needed knee surgery. She also learned that she had qualified for the Paris Games.
“At the time I was crying, hugging my coach,” she said after a training session in Jakarta. “My coach told me that finally our struggle from 2015 had become a reality.”
Almost two years after her surgery and hours upon hours of dogged daily practice, Rifda is readying herself for Paris where she will compete in artistic gymnastics, which includes a number of individual competitions on various apparatus such as the beam, vault and uneven bars.