Fighting Stereotypes, Out Aussie Heath Thorpe Brings Grace and Beauty to Gymnastics

In 2023 gymnast Australian gymnast Heath Thorpe was poised to be part of the five-man team to represent his country in the 2024 Olympics. But despite having won the Senior Men's All-Around title at the 2023 Australian Gymnastics Championships, he was not named to five-man team that went to Paris.

Despite his disappointment, the 24-year-old out gymnast continues to make his mark in a sport not known for having many out participants. Last week, the Australia native showed the gymnastics world that he'd be one to watch in the new season with a strong fifth place finish in the horizontal bar at a World Cup event.

He subsequently headed to the Luxemburg Open, where he finished in first place in the horizontal bar event, Outsports reports.

"Had the most fun out there today and stoked to have capped off a successful season start with 4/4 hit routines over this last week," he wrote on Instagram.

And he thanked the spectators that cheered him on. "Thanks to Luxembourg crowd – you always give me the best energy," he wrote.

"Thorpe got off to a strong start at the event with a second place finish in the qualifying round. Although he stumbled just a bit on the landing, his poise and strength on the bar carried him through to the final," Outsports continues.

"Once there, Thorpe pulled off a series of dazzling moves and stuck the landing, vaulting him into a first place spot that he would not relinquish."

Thorpe came out at the age of 18 and has pushed against stereotypes in the gymnastic world, which emphasize strength and power over grace and beauty in movement, the latter being associated with exhibiting femininity.

In 2022 Thorpe began getting attention from those in the gymnastics world through his social media posts, where snippets of his new routines showed "his attention to detail and clean lines, but also for doing something hardly ever seen by a male gymnast: leaps," wrote a 2022 report in Inside Gymnastics Magazine. "Thorpe can execute them to perfection, fully extending into a 180 degree split – "sometimes beyond."

But the question remained: Why should he bother since, unlike on the women's side, leaps and other dance elements are not listed in the Code of Points for the men? It once was in earlier versions of the Code, but at one point the rules were changed. "Arthur Gander, who is credited with creating the men's code of points, once told Modern Gymnast in 1968 that men 'must be careful of going too far with the feminine trend,'" Inside Gymnastics recalled. "A statement that reinforced the idea that elements showing grace and flexibility are for women and were seen as a threat to the sports desired image of masculinity on the men's side."

Thorpe rejected that notion, and even tried to get the rules changed, only to be turned down in 2022.

"Outside of the gymnastics world there is a stereotype of men's gymnastics being feminine or being seen as gay or girly. We're told that all the time as kids. When you say, 'I do gymnastics' someone replies, 'That's for girls,'" he told Inside Gymnastics. "So you're told from a young age that the sport you're doing is emasculating, essentially. I think in retaliation to that, men's gymnastics has created this environment of hyper masculinity and heteronormativity. Artistry in the eyes of men's gymnastics equals femininity and for some reason we see that as a bad thing. I think we see leaps and artistry as very easy and I don't know... almost a girly thing. But in reality it requires so much work and time and it's really hard to do it well."

At that time he said that he was going to continue to perform these moves for the simple reason that he likes doing them. "But for me, I enjoy myself more when I'm performing these things. I enjoy that reaction from the crowd and I enjoy how it makes me feel. I feel more confident, I feel more engaged with my routine and I feel like I have a better end result. I talked to a judge about the psychology behind good form and artistry. They spoke about even though artistry isn't necessarily being rewarded, as judges, when they see this beautiful presentation it gives them the subconscious thought that you are a cleaner gymnast. So it still does reward you in ways you may not think. You might not see it in the D-score but it does subconsciously affect judging in the E-score at least."

After winning in Luxemburg, Thorpe said he was having a glass of wine and heading to Paris for a quick celebration before returning the grind of the sport.

Check out pics from Thorpe's Instagram, which include routines that show his beauty in movement: