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, 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. This Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions fellowship will be hosted by Örebro Univeristy.
Until then, I remain an honorary research fellow affiliated with the University of Western Australia.
If you’d like to get in touch about socio-cultural-historical issues in gymnastics, the history of women’s sport or Cold War sport, please contact me at georgiacervin.research@gmail.com.
