Aerobic Ace
Bizarre, fun and challenging. These are the three words that superstar Ebony Biden uses to describe her sport – Aerobic Gymnastics. For those of you that don’t know, aerobics involves athletes performing acrobatic, dance and gymnastic moves either individually or in sync with multiple team members to music. Unlike all of my university assignments, it sounds fun and easy. But in reality, aerobics is incredibly physically demanding.
Ebony was first introduced to aerobics by a PE teacher that asked her to try out for the school team. Having a gymnastics and taekwondo background, Ebony felt the sport suited her strengths and quickly fell in love. She went on to compete in the National Championships almost ten times (yowza!) and represented Australia twice, finishing 1st and 2nd respectively!
Unfortunately, two weeks out from representing Australia a third time, Ebony faced heartbreak – a torn ACL. Despite being mentally primed for the upcoming competition, the MRI scans forced her onto the sidelines and into intensive rehab for a whole year. But it was her “not done yet” mentality that got the better of the injury and saw her competing again and eventually back on the national squad.
One of Ebony’s aerobics highlights is her first time representing Victoria as a 15 year-old, staying in a packed room with almost 20 teammates in QLD. More generally, this embodies one of her favourite parts of the sport: doing everything as a team. You travel together, stay over at each other’s houses for a 6am training session the following morning and perfect the little things as a team. All of this hard work for a ~1.5 minute routine to a banging Christina Aguilera song - nothing short of incredible dedication.
Ebony decided to stop competing in 2022 after bringing home a gold and bronze medal from her last National Championships, but sport still plays a major role in her life. Last year, she represented her university in taekwondo at University Nationals and has previously volunteered as an aerobics coach at both her primary and high schools. Oh, and she did all of this while completing a PhD in Psychology!
Ebony is someone that often had to leave school early and travel for more than an hour to get to training week in, week out. She always showed up for her teammates and her attitude was unwavering even during the most difficult of times. Doing a sport that in itself is underappreciated, Ebony… you are a true one percenter!
