Emma Nedov and Georgia-Rose Brown are elite athletes, buddies, and business partners. Their start-up, Artium Sport, consolidates their years of experience in competitive level artistic gymnastics with a passion for coaching and creative instinct for design.
Neighbourhood Media spoke with Emma about being an athlete, entrepreneurship, living in Turramurra, and life in pandemic times.
Interview with Artium Sport Founder
Tell us more about your gymnastics and sports background.
Short story, I’ve been an elite artistic gymnast for 19 years. I started when I was 6 and fell in love with the sport. I’ve represented Australia internationally for over 10 years, been to 3 World Championships and won a World Cup gold medal on the balance beam, which is my specialty apparatus.
Did you grow up in Turramurra? Share some of your childhood experiences. What do you like about the area?
Yep! I attended Turramurra Public School for my primary education where I had the best time and the school was always incredibly supportive of my gymnastics. I remember they’d put my results from State and National competitions on their billboard making me feel extra special.
I also remember getting the bus home from high school (on the rare afternoons when I wasn’t training) and sitting at Turramurra station eating potato scallops and chips with my friends. I still live in Turramurra now and I love the bush and the birds.
How long have you and Georgia been friends?
About 13 years. We met at a national training camp in the AIS in Canberra when I was about 11 and have been close friends ever since, travelling the world competing together, despite living in different states.
When did you and Georgia create Artium Sport?
We started playing with the idea in early 2018 and we received our first prototype of our training bag for World Championships that year, which is when we launched the business in October of 2018.
Describe Artium Sport.
Artium Sport is a niche sporting brand selling products (and soon to be apparel) that are designed for athletes by athletes.
Georgia and I initially created our first product ‘The Kit Bag’ for gymnasts, but have since found how perfect it is for other individual sports such as diving, athletics, boxing and dance.
We have also started Workshops for gymnasts, athletes, coaches and schools where we offer to educate and motivate others with the knowledge we have acquired from our 20 years as elite athletes. This is sponsored by our business ‘Artium Sport’ as at the end of each session we offer a voucher to our shop to all attendees.
How has COVID-19 affected your business and your gymnastics careers?
As for business, we’re currently out of stock of our Kit Bags and that’s due to slower production during COVID. It’s also affected our ability to travel interstate to hold ‘in person’ workshops so we’ve modified them to allow for the workshops to be done online. Other than that, fortunately business has been normal.
As for my gymnastics career, COVID unfortunately affected my qualification to the now 2021 Olympic Games. I was in the middle of a qualifying event when COVID hit and the spot I was vying for was compromised. I likely would’ve qualified to the Olympics had COVID not happened so as you can imagine it was devastating.
Why should kids do gymnastics?
It’s the BEST fundamental sport, whether you want to continue in gymnastics or go into another sport it teaches young kids how to move their body and develop physical strength, challenge themselves a little bit and also teaches some great tricks to show off to all of your friends!