The association started its humble beginning on 11th July 1962 as Selangor Amatur Gymnastics Association but was unfortunately deregistered in 1967 as it had failed to abide to the regulations of the Registrar of Societies. A new association was formed in 1974 and the name was changed to Persatuan Gimnastik Amatur Wilayah Persekutuan when Kuala Lumpur became a Federal Territory, separate from Selangor. It conducted its activities which were mainly training at Stadium Negara until 1983 when it had to abruptly move out to make way for the Olympic Council of Malaysia which wanted the space for its office. It was only in 1987 when it found a new venue at Datuk Lokman Secondary School and was able to conduct training there twice a week.
In the 1990’s the sport kept struggling on and we were unofficially using the MGF/MSN National Gymnasium at Technical Teachers’ Training College as a training center. However, this ended sometime in the 2000’s when it was decided that the National Gym be used only for national gymnasts training. So once again, we were out of another training venue. Meanwhile, a few private clubs started in KL and this kept the sport going within Kuala Lumpur. The clubs were however individually owned and their facilities were somewhat limited for high performance training.
However, gymnastics strived on and in spite of the lack of a proper venue for training, we were able to produce international level gymnasts such as Lim Wai Chee, Au Li Yen, Thong Chee Wai, Nurul Fatiha bt Abdul Hamid, Mohd Irwan bin Miskob and many others who represented the country and brought honors to WPKL. Lim Wai Chi represented Malaysia at the SEA Games and Au Li Yen became Malaysia’s first female Olympic gymnast when she qualified to compete at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Finally, in year 2016, with the help of Federal Territory Sports Council (MSWP) and Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) we managed to get a proper training center located at DBKL Sports Complex, Lake Gardens. It was named as KL Gymnasium, our first State Training Center for Artistic Gymnastics.
Rhythmic Gymnastics technical committee was formed in 1985. Training was initially done in schools halls, open spaces and even school corridors by respective school clubs in Kuala Lumpur. State centralized training started in 1990 when the Sports Complex Kampung Pandan agreed to allocate us usage of the hall located at the ground floor. However this didn’t last long as the hall had to be closed due to major renovations at the complex. Other venues were then used for training including DBKL Sports Complex in Brickfields and Bangsar Sports Complex. They were not very suitable as most of the time, the halls had to be shared with other sports. This was particularly difficult for coaches and gymnasts as the huge training carpet had to be rolled up and stored after each training session.
In 1994, National Sports Council (MSN) together with DBKL agreed to renovate the school hall in Bukit Bintang Secondary School on condition that the hall be made available to PGWPKL for RG training on a sharing basis with the school. Hence for the first time, we had a permanent place for centralized training that we could use on a daily basis. Unfortunately in year 2000, the school was relocated to Taman Shamelin, Cheras after the land in Bukit Bintang was sold off for commercial use. The search for a suitable training venue continued with a temporary return to training at Kampung Pandan. Today, we still do not have a proper venue for state training. In the meantime, we are using private clubs such as Rhythmic Excellence Academy as a State Training Center (Pusat Latihan Negeri) for RG.
In spite of the lack of proper training facilities, PGWPKL has been at the fore front for RG excellence in the country. We have swept and won many medals at national level competitions such as Malaysia Youth Games (SUKMA), National Championship and Malaysian School Sports Council (MSSM) Competitions for many, many years. We have produced many top national gymnasts who have done the country proud internationally. Among the notable gymnasts are Farrah Hani Imran (the first rhythmic gymnast to participate at the World Championships), Rosniza Abu Bakar, Celeste Chan, Goh Yi Wei, Caroline Au Yong, Durratun Nashihin Rosli (medalist in the Commonwealth Games in 1998), Wan Siti Haniza and many others.
Our RG dominance in the country (even without proper training facilities) has been possible only because of the large pool of dedicated and outstanding administrative and technical personnel who has been serving the association as volunteers. Coaches like Petrina Low whose years of dedication and commitment to the sport has won her many awards like Women & Sports Award (OCM and IOC), Anugerah Khas Sukan (MSN) and Jurulatih Berjasa (MSSM). We have also produced many noteworthy judges of international calibre. In fact at one time, Kuala Lumpur had the most number of qualified FIG Brevet judges in the country.
| Presidents | Tenure |
| Mr. Cheah Hai Su | 1974 – 1983 |
| Mr. K Balachandran | 1984 – 1990 |
| Dato’ Yeoh Choo Hock* (Honorary Life President) | 1991 – 2002 |
| Mr. David Kok Yong Keng | 2003 – 2006 |
| Mr. MP Haridas Menon | 2007 – 2020 |
| Mr. Mike Ng Sik Hoi** | 2020 – 2021 |
| Dato’ Radhakrishnan Nair | 2021 – 2022 |
| Mr. Mike Ng Sik Hoi | 2022*** – present |
* Dato’ Yeoh Choo Hock was made Honorary Life President for his invaluable contribution to the association. He set the association off on a sound financial footing through funds raised from charity shows such as the David Copperfield show in 1992 and through his many connections in the private and government sectors. During his tenure, he took the association to the next level by initiating international level activities and connecting the association to gymnastic clubs abroad.
** Mr. Mike Ng Sik Hoi took over as Acting President from 2020 – 2021 while Mr. MP Haridas Menon was on a 1 year sabbatical leave.
*** Mr. Mike Ng Sik Hoi took over as Acting President from 2022 – 2023.
Pesta Gimnastik Kuala Lumpur was started in 1988 at Stadium Chin Woo. Three categories of events were run namely Artistic Gymnastics competition, Rhythmic Gymnastics competition and General Gymnastics (Gymnaestrada). Ever since then, it has been organized almost every year and in 2019 it had reached its 30th year of existence as a state level championship which is a record in the annals of Malaysian Gymnastics. During the tenure of Dato’ Yeoh, in 1992 PGWPKL organized its first international event, Inter-City Rhythmic Gymnastics Competition attended by Japan (Hakodate City) and South Korea (Seoul). In the following year this event was incorporated into Pesta Gimnastik and since then it has attracted participation from more and more cities including Moscow, Paris, South Africa, Melbourne, Dubai, Bangkok and others. Since its inception, the Gymnaestrada event slowly but surely started to gain immense popularity among schools in Kuala Lumpur and an international flavor was added to it when Japan and Bangkok participated. In 2011, Gymnaestrada event was changed to Gym for Life Challenge held at the Mines Exhibition and Convention Center. This event was run in accordance to the rules and regulations of FIG. In 2013, we participated for the first time at the 2nd World Gym for Life Challenge in Cape Town, South Africa. Two gymnastics clubs from Kuala Lumpur participated and they brought honours to the association and country by winning Gold and Silver medals.
Apart from organizing competitions and various display performances and shows, PGWPKL signed MOU’s with various gymnastics clubs such as Hokadate RG Association (Japan) and Seoul Gymnastics Association (South Korea) to foster close ties and friendship through yearly exchanges via competitions and training. Our ties with Hakodate were especially memorable as we made yearly trips to participate at the Snow Cup Competition in winter. This exchange immensely benefitted the development of our novice and elite gymnasts besides promoting deep lasting friendship with coaches and parents. It was a yearly trip that we look forward to and this exchange lasted for almost 10 years. Apart from these exchange programs, over the years we also organized trips to participate in many other international state and club level competitions held in cities such as Auckland, Perth, Tokyo, Edinburgh, Moscow and St Petersburg to give competition exposure to our gymnasts as well as establishing friendly relations with the gymnastics fraternity in these countries.
In conclusion, PGWPKL has from its modest beginning, grown by leaps and bounds to become one of the most active state associations as well as a power house of rhythmic gymnastics in the country. It has not been smooth sailing all the time as there were many challenges and hurdles and till today, we still do not have a permanent training venue to call our own. Without the commitment, hard work, love of the sport and dedication of its people, the volunteers in the association who come together year after year to organize and help sustain its activities as well as the support from gymnasts, parents, sports government bodies, sponsors and donors, it would not have been what it is today. Thank you all. WE SALUTE YOU!