I started training as a gymnast when I was 6 years-old. I went along to my local club in Scunthorpe, Allegro Gymnastics Academy, as my older sister went there. I really enjoyed it and decided to carry on and after a short while I was entering 2 piece competitions which includes Floor and Vault and soon added several medals to my collection. This made me even more motivated to train hard and after a while my coaches recognised that I had the potential to go further with more specialist Men's Artistic Gymnastic coaching.
I went onto win many 2 piece competitions and I increased my training hours and started to develop my skills across all 6 pieces of apparatus, which are Rings, High Bar, Parallel Bar, Pommel, Vault and Floor. In my first 6 piece competition in Yorkshire I won 3 Golds, 3 Silvers and was awarded Overall Boys Champion Trophy.
I now train at Lincoln Gymnastics Academy 3 to 4 times per week on the National Development Pathway in a squad of 9 other boys. Recently, I was selected to compete at the Regional Qualifiers in Leicester and amazingly won a place on the East Midlands Team with 5 other boys from different clubs in that region. This meant I was going to the Men's Artistic National Championships in Telford in November to compete against the bests gymnasts in the U.K.. I performed well on all 6 pieces of apparatus and got a personal best total points score and almost a perfect 10 score for my vault, scoring 9.9.
I now move onto training at Level 3 and hope to improve further this year with no lockdowns interruption things! I will get the chance to compete more again and aim the make it to Nationals once again next year. I would love to make the national team and represent my country when I'm older.
Louie Dale
5 Holly