By Mubarak Simmons, GymnasticsVille Host
Two Commonwealth Games silver medals. Three World Championships team appearances. A skill in the FIG Code of Points with her name permanently attached to it. And then Mary-Anne “Mez” Monckton walked away from gymnastics entirely.
On the newest episode of Back to Basics by GymnasticsVille, the former Australian elite gymnast joined the show to talk about the full arc of her career, why she left the sport in 2017, and the single sentence from a coach in a Calgary gym that pulled her back in through adult gymnastics.
From Newcastle to the AIS at Seven Years Old
Monckton started gymnastics at age five at Lake Macquarie PCYC in Newcastle, Australia. Two years later, at seven, the Australian Institute of Sport identified her as an elite prospect. Her family relocated to Canberra so she could train up to 40 hours a week.
When the AIS program closed, Mez moved to Melbourne on her own at fifteen, living with family friends while she continued training. She represented Australia at three World Championships (2011, 2014, and 2015), served as a 2012 Olympic reserve, and captured two silver medals at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, one with the team and one on balance beam.
Beam, Bars, and the Skill in the Code
Balance beam became her signature event, though she is quick to point out she never particularly loved it.
“I thought beam was so boring. It was just monotonous, doing the same thing over and over. But the reason I was good at it was because I did not have any fear.”
— Mary-Anne Monckton
Her favorite apparatus was actually uneven bars, the event where she has her eponymous skill: a Shushanova variant with a half turn that vaults over the bar in a straddle position. She performed it once in international competition. When the FIG revalued the skill the following code cycle, she never bothered performing it again.
The ACL, the Retirement, and the Documentaries That Changed Everything
Monckton was training for the 2016 Rio Olympic Test Event when she tore her ACL in what she describes as a freak accident on bars, going over in a handstand and landing wrong. She retired from elite gymnastics in 2017 and moved into coaching.
Then came 2020. While at home during the pandemic, she watched the gymnastics documentaries Athlete A and At the Heart of Gold, and her perspective on her own career shifted overnight.
“It wasn’t until I watched those that I realized a lot of that had happened to me as a kid. And my family were like, Mez, that’s not okay.”
— Mary-Anne Monckton
Monckton became one of several former Australian gymnasts who spoke publicly about the culture of the sport. The Australian Human Rights Commission subsequently investigated and confirmed abuse within Australian gymnastics. During that same period, Mez experienced what she describes as a mental breakdown and stopped coaching altogether.
Calgary, CAPTivate, and the Sentence That Changed Everything
In 2022, Monckton’s family relocated to Canada for her husband’s work as a pilot. By late 2023, she was in Calgary, at home with two toddler boys, and looking for something for herself.
She Googled “adult gymnastics near me” and found CAPTivate Gymnastics, the program founded by Hayley Silberg in 2018. She emailed asking to join mid-term. Silberg initially said no. Then she Googled Mez, called her back, and said yes.
The first night at CAPTivate, Monckton walked in listing every injury and every reason she could not do things. A coach asked if she could put her hands on Mez’s shoulders. Mez said yes.
“She looked me right in the eyes and said, Mez, at CAPTivate, you’re in control of what you do. Listen to your body. If you don’t want to do something, you don’t have to do it. You don’t have to follow the numbers. And I just started crying. I had never heard that before. I never felt so respected in the gymnastics space.”
— Mary-Anne Monckton
That was the moment she fell back in love with the sport.
Bringing CAPTivate Home to Newcastle
When Mez returned to Australia, Silberg encouraged her to bring CAPTivate with her. Monckton launched CAPTivate Adult Gymnastics in her hometown of Newcastle in July 2025 with roughly 20 athletes and a handful of weekly sessions.
One year later, the club has more than 85 athletes, 10 coaches Monckton has personally trained, and a “mature movement” program built specifically for adults over 55, with current participants ranging from 60 to 80 years old.
The program’s guiding principle is simple, and Monckton repeats it often. No blaming. No shaming. No guilt tripping. Athletes decide what they do, when they do it, and whether they do it at all.
What Adult Gymnastics Could Teach the Elite Level
Monckton has now coached in nearly every corner of the sport, from tumbling and trampoline to diving and school groups to elite gymnastics to adults. She believes the adult model has something to offer the sport’s highest levels.
“If elite athletes had less pressure and more of that enjoyment of movement and learning new things, the elite space would be a bit more happy.”
— Mary-Anne Monckton
She sees encouraging signs already. Athletes are competing longer. Teams are more relaxed. Rules that once prevented gymnasts from speaking to opposing delegations have relaxed. That kind of cultural shift, she says, is only possible when coaches stop treating adults like children and start letting athletes actually enjoy what they do.
A Message for Anyone Who Thinks It’s Too Late
The closing message of the episode is one Monckton clearly wants to travel far.
“You’re never too old, you’re never too fat, you’re never too unfit. It’s never too late to come back to it.”
— Mary-Anne Monckton
She points to a 69-year-old member of her mature movement program who recently told her she could not wait to see where her adult gymnastics journey would go. That kind of statement, from someone who started six months earlier at that age, is the whole point.
For anyone in Australia who wants to train with CAPTivate, the club runs weekly sessions in Newcastle, New South Wales, about two hours north of Sydney. For anyone in Canada, CAPTivate operates across multiple provinces with its main hub in Calgary. CAPTivate is also planning major adult gymnastics camps in Australia in April 2027 and again in 2028, with Silberg and her coaches traveling from Canada to join.
Listen on the Go
Prefer audio? The full episode is available on your podcast platform of choice.
- Apple Podcasts: GymnasticsVille Podcast
- Spotify: GymnasticsVille on Spotify
If you enjoyed this conversation, revisit our earlier episode with CAPTivate founder Hayley Silberg and our episode with adult gymnastics returner Angela Fuller.
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