In May 2024 I was asked to be part of the Team England Men's gymnastics training camp at Lilleshall national sports centre. I was incredibly impressed with the level of gymnastics and how professionally the weekend was put together. I had the opportunity to share my experiences in gymnastics with a group of 30 hardworking and positively minded young athletes. At 2AM whilst feeding Ozzy I began to think about the information and advice that would have helped me as a teenager with ambitions of competing at the highest level. I focussed on five key areas: Recovery, nutrition, mindset, confidence and preparation. And this is my story.

In 2021 at the Tokyo Olympic Games Amelie Morgan made history alongside her team mates by winning the first women's team medal in 93 years. She had an outstanding junior career taking five medals at the 2018 junior European championships and three medals at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires. Amelie home schooled as a teenager in order to maintain her 35 hour a week training schedule. Balancing her education alongside her gymnastics eventually led to her accepting a full sports scholarship to study and compete for the university of Utah in 2021. In the past week she has announced her retirement from elite gymnastics and subsequently withdrawing herself from the Paris 2024 Olympic selection process. And this is her story.

In April 2024 many of the best gymnasts in the world competed nationally, internationally and globally in their preparations for the Paris Olympic Games. At the European Championships in Rimini the British junior men took the team final in dramatic fashion for the first time since 2016. In the senior event the Ukrainian team edged out GB scoring 255.762 which impressively would have taken the team title at the 2023 World Championships. The British team produced an incredibly professional performance hitting eighteen routines and taking two individual apparatus gold medals. In the NCAA finals Stamford claimed their fifth title in a row and Asher Hong, Fred Richard and Khoi Young were the standout performers producing some exceptional gymnastics. The final individual Olympic apparatus spots were confirmed following the World Cup event in Doha and in Japan the reigning Olympic champion Daiki Hashimoto scored an incredible 88 average all around over two days. And this is my story.