31/07/2026
🏆 A standing ovation, thirteen years in the making.
On Monday, Jan and Stephen McGinnity were presented with an Innovation Award for the Country Capital Cup — and the room rose to its feet.
When they started the Cup in 2014, it was 250 athletes from 14 clubs, held on the floor where Tamworth gymnasts train every week. This year: 1,055 athletes from 35 clubs, with teams having travelled from NSW, Queensland, the ACT, Singapore and New Zealand. Thirteen consecutive years, not one of them missed — including 2020, when Jan and Stephen backed their daughters Jodie and Rebecca to run the whole thing live online across 24 simultaneous Zoom links, for 700 athletes around Australia and New Zealand.
The Cup was built on a simple idea: country families travel the furthest and pay the same fees, so why should they get less? Free entry for spectators. Trophies and medals worth the drive. Coaches and judges properly fed and looked after. A crowd that’s encouraged to make noise. A disco for the kids that once had 600 of them dancing in the Town Hall. And a dinner for the adults so that a coach from a brand-new club feels every bit as welcome as one from a club with a full trophy cabinet.
That last part is the bit no award can quite measure. Jan and Stephen have spent thirteen years making sure everyone in this sport feels like they belong in the room, regardless of what their club has won.
And none of it happens without the volunteers of Tamworth Gymnastics Club, the management team behind the event — Jodie, Rebecca and Katie — and the canteen run by Carmen and Danielle.
Congratulations Jan and Stephen. Long overdue, and thoroughly deserved. 💜💙💛