The mother of a 19-year-old gymnast who died last week in Townsville in north Queensland says there was nothing freakish about the training accident. More...

[QUOTE] Her mother, Anne Maitland, says a safety mat was missing from where it would normally be and her daughter hit her head on the concrete. Ms Maitland says she wants the gymnasium closed down until the investigation is completed. "Freak accidents happen all the time at gymnastics - that's why they have so much padding," she said. "The reason my daughter died was there was no padding - they removed the mat, nobody bothered to put it back and she landed on the concrete." [/QUOTE] It is a must to have padding and matting in the gym workout areas all the time. At an optionals meet here in the USA there wasn't any padding/matting outside of the strip of matting under the uneven bars - one of the girls hit the high bar and if another coach wasn't there to catch her she would have hit the concrete. [QUOTE] Gymnastics Queensland is also conducting its own investigation and earlier this week president Wayne Hill said the incident appeared to be a freak accident in a top-class facility. "It's got good governance and good safety practices which it adheres to and if this was going to happen in any club, it would probably be the last club we would have expected," he said. Mr Hill said he had never heard of an accident like it before. "I think she hit her head on a floor well away from the tumble track," he said. "They've got matting around the tumble track and within all the requirements that we put down as the governing body - it was just something that was totally freakish." [/QUOTE]