Photography: Robert Trathen.
Most medical students finish a long day at the hospital dreaming about dinner and an early night, but after Courtney McGregor clock offs, she grabs a snack, then heads to the gym to train for another four and a half hours!
That’s because the 27-year-old Christchurch-born gymnast and fifth-year med student is working overtime as she preps to represent New Zealand at this month’s Commonwealth Games in Scotland.
Courtney’s hoping for redemption after travelling to Glasgow as a teen to compete in the 2014 Commonwealth Games, only to suffer a heart- breaking knee injury that forced her to withdraw.
Two years later, she bounced back to compete at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, finishing an impressive 13th in the vault final, before accepting a full athletics scholarship to Boise State University in Idaho, where she spent three years completing a Bachelor of Health Science while training and travelling with the gymnastics team.
“It was such a cool experience – there’d be 15,000 people watching our college gym meets,” recalls Courtney, who has Nga‒ti Kahungunu heritage. “The resources they had to support athletes were incredible. Instead of competing half a dozen times a year, we’d compete 16 weekends in a row. I got to see so much of the States.”
An early retirement from gymnastics
On track to be at the Tokyo Olympics, Courtney had another devastating setback when she tore her Achilles tendon and then the COVID pandemic erupted. “It got complicated,” she tells. “I had to decide whether to continue with gymnastics. I didn’t think continuing was feasible without the support I’d had in America and I decided I’d achieved all I wanted to in the sport.”
Planning to go to med school, and knowing she wanted to live and practise in New Zealand, Courtney made the tough call to retire and commit to her studies.
For the first year, gymnastics – which she started at three years old, competing by age six – barely crossed her mind. Instead, her time was spent figuring out how to study and what to do with her newfound spare time.
“It took a while to get used to,” confesses Courtney. “I grew up going to school, then gym for 4.5 hours, then getting home late. Without training, I had so much more time in my day! I could just do things normal people do.”
But when details emerged for the 2026 Commonwealth Games, Courtney’s interest was piqued and she began to consider a comeback.
A second chance
Even though she hadn’t competed for five years, or trained seriously for three or four, she returned to competition in April 2025, surprising herself when she not only achieved the selectors’ target scores but also went on to win the national title in September, scoring a place in our Commonwealth squad.
“I didn’t really expect that much of myself,” she grins.
“It was cool how well it went.”
Since then, Courtney has been squeezing in 20 to 22 hours of gymnastics training each week around more than 40 hours on placement in Tauranga Hospital. Some days surgery begins at 6.30am and she’ll head to the gym until as late as 10pm.
Yet instead of being over-whelmed by her commitments, Courtney says medicine and gymnastics are perfect partners.
“Medicine is very cognitively challenging – you’re thinking all day,” she explains. “Gymnastics works best if you switch your brain off and go on autopilot. It’s almost like mindfulness for me.”
Working in hospitals has also given her a refreshing new perspective.
“Growing up, gymnastics was my whole life. I put a lot of pressure on myself.
Now, seeing people who are genuinely unwell every day, I recognise it’s a privilege to be able to do what I do.”
Commonwealth & beyond
Courtney’s looking forward to performing her floor routine to Ariana Grande’s God Is A Woman and sharing the Games experience with the rest of the New Zealand squad.
“We’ve got seven gymnasts going and it’ll be fun having that team atmosphere,” she enthuses. “It’s also cool to have the sport on the global stage for a few weeks.”
As for life after Glasgow, Courtney’s workload will increase next year when she begins as a house surgeon, rotating through medical and surgical disciplines before deciding where she’d like to specialise. Orthopaedics and sports medicine are early favourites – unsurprising for an athlete whose body has endured countless injuries.
“I’ve probably got the joints of an 80-year-old,” she jokes.
What Courtney loves about medicine is what first drew her to gymnastics.
She explains, “I’m always learning and growing. I’ll never know everything or master everything – that’s what makes it so interesting.”
