21-05-2025
Unfinished business for Renaud
Gymnastics has always been part of Max Renaud's DNA.
But after 10 years in the sport, Renaud decided it was time to walk away and retired from the sport he loved.
An underlying feeling of unfinished business led Renaud back to the mat at the end of 2022 and now he is in line for his biggest competition yet.
Renaud has been selected as part of the men's artistic gymnastics team representing New Zealand at the FISU world university games in Germany in July.
The Otago Polytechnic student is part of a five-strong men's team competing in Rhine-Ruhr and is the only polytechnic, and South Island, representative among the team.
"To make it back to an international level after a three-year retirement post-high school is an absolute dream come true," Renaud said.
Renaud, 22, took up gymnastics when he was 7 back home in Christchurch where he trained at the Christchurch School of Gymnastics.
He competed throughout New Zealand, and later overseas in Texas and at Australian nationals, before deciding to retire when he finished secondary school at 17.
He then made the trip south to Dunedin to study, graduating with a bachelor of culinary arts from polytech in 2022.
He is currently studying towards his honours in design.
It was in Dunedin where Renaud decided to make a return to the mat.
"I missed it, first of all.
"I've been doing the sports since I was 7.
"Second, I had some regrets.
"I didn't do some of the skills I wanted to, I didn't maybe achieve what I wanted to in certain areas, so I thought to come back with a better mindset, and have a healthy outlook on it, the sport-life balance, would be good for me — and it has been."
He acknowledged it was tough being an international-level gymnast in Dunedin, but the Dunedin Gymnastics Academy had been very supportive.
He spent 20 hours a week training across the six artistic apparatus and will review over the next two months what he competes in in Germany — in between his studies.
So what has kept him in the sport this time?
"A bit of it is I don't know anything else.
"It really is a love for this kind of sport. It builds character, it's [taught] me who I am ... it's really, really developmental."
While there may have been a time Renaud was unsure he would ever return as an athlete, he was never far from the sport.
Renaud became a judge while at secondary school and now holds the highest qualification for a judge in New Zealand with ambitions to reach an international level in the future.
"I've always been super keen on it.
"My old coach was always saying you do one — coaching or judging.
"I picked judging and I haven't looked back."
