Georgia Cervin

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1

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I'm a New Zealand-based sports scholar focused on governance, gender, and gymnastics. My work has traversed issues of abuse and athlete rights in gymnastics, to the relationships between international federations and the IOC, to how the politics of the Cold War affected sport.

As a former international gymnast, my research has focused on the culture and the history of women's gymnastics. Based on nearly a decade of research, my book called "Degrees of Difficulty: How Women's Gymnastics Rose to Prominence and Fell From Grace," will be published by the University of Illinois Press in June 2021.

In the meantime, I've already published over 20 articles and book chapters on gymnastics and women's leadership in sport. I've collaborated closely with other researchers to develop best practice recommendations for coaches and national governing bodies to create a more positive training environment for gymnasts. And my 2020 co-edited book "Histories of Women's Work in Global Sport: A Man's World?" was shortlisted for best anthology at the North American Society for Sport History.

Starting in late 2021, I will lead a three-year European Union funded project called "Engendered Sport" that will investigate how international sports federations and participants together create, enforce, and dismantle gender within their sports.

Experience

  • –present
    Honorary Research Fellow, University of Western Australia

Education

  • 2017 
    University of Western Australia, PhD, History

Publications

  • 2020
    Degrees of Difficulty: How Women's Gymnastics Rose to Prominence and Fell from Grace, University of Illinois Press
  • 2020
    Ringing the Changes: How the Relationship between the International Gymnastics Federation and the International Olympic Committee Has Shaped Gymnastics Policy, Sport History Review, 51 (1), 46–63
  • 2019
    Coming of age: coaches transforming the pixie-style model of coaching in women’s artistic gymnastics, Sports Coaching Review 8 (1), 7-24
  • 2019
    The Code of Points and Career Development in Women's Artistic Gymnastics, Science of Gymnastics Journal 11 (1)
  • 2019
    Histories of Women's Work in Global Sport: A Man's World?, Palgrave Macmillan
  • 2018
    The Role of Setting in the Field: The Positioning of Older Bodies in the Field of Elite Women’s Gymnastics, Sociology
  • 2017
    “Gymnasts are like wine, they get better with age”: becoming and developing adult women’s artistic gymnasts, Quest 69 (3), 348-365
  • 2017
    Gymnastics’ centre of gravity: the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique, its governance and the Cold War, 1956–1976, Sport in History 37 (3), 309-331
  • 2017
    Growing up and speaking out: female gymnasts' rights in an ageing sport, Annals of Leisure Research 20 (3), 317-330
  • 2016
    Making Meaning of the 1970s East-West Gymnastics Tours: Diplomacy, détente, and professionalising women's artistic gymnastics, Sporting Traditions 32 (2), 85-100
  • 2016
    n Ironic Imbalance: Coaching Opportunities and Gender in Women’s Artistic Gymnastics in Australia and New Zealand, The International Journal of the History of Sport 33 (17), 2139-2152
  • 2015
    Coming of age: Towards best practice in women's artistic gymnastics, Lincoln University, LEaP Research Report No. 37
  • 2015
    Gymnasts are Not Merely Circus Phenomena: Influences on the Development of Women’s Artistic Gymnastics During the 1970s, The International Journal of the History of Sport 32 (16), 1929-1946

Contact Georgia for

  • General
  • Media request
  • Speaking request
  • Consulting / Advising
  • Research collaboration
  • Research supervision