Now 18, Hopman has been carving her own path in international sport. Earlier this year she competed at three gymnastics World Cups in eastern Europe to earn her ticket to Birmingham. And she did it while she battled a chest infection, ending up hospitalised in Bulgaria.
She’s thrilled to be in the same team as her role model – who literally set the bar high for her.
Throughout her years at Baradene, in Auckland, Hopman broke all of Bing’s school high jump records.
Even though she was focused on rhythmic gymnastics and making the 2022 Commonwealth Games team, high jump was “something I liked to do on the side”, explains Hopman, who jumped at national secondary schools level.
“My dad and I would sit down and say: ‘Okay we’ve got to break this school record’. I got it in Year 7 and 8, then my goal was to get it every year,” she says.
In her final year of high school, she cleared 1.66m to snare Bing’s senior record.
She had some competition – including Bing’s younger sister, Lillian, a national junior pole vault champion (who won bronze at the Oceania champs in Mackay last weekend). “I’d say to Lilli ‘I’m so sorry but I really want to get your sister’s record’,” Hopman says.
Lillian and Havana bump into each other on the school grounds, and wish each other luck in their international competitions. One day, they say and laugh, they could be on the same New Zealand team, too.
With the bar now well behind her, Hopman is concentrating on the hoop, ball, clubs, ribbon and rope - and winning a medal in Birmingham.
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When Hopman was in Year 10 at Baradene, she approached the school’s director of sport, Catherine Ratcliffe, and asked if she could coach the school’s rhythmic gymnasts.
“She came to us, she wanted to do it,” Ratcliffe says. “It’s not often athletes can give back.” Especially when they’re still at school.
To acknowledge her contribution, Hopman received the student service to sport award last year for her dedication to coaching. She's happy to help out again - but once her long international season is over.
I meet Hopman in the principal’s office of the Catholic girls’ school in Remuera, her first time back at Baradene since she left. “It's weird signing in as a visitor,” she says.