Gymnast Sam Oldham fired up for top summer after European medal
Friday 24 March 2017 13:16, UK
Sam Oldham is back! Last summer his gymnastics career looked over with a horrible ankle injury but after months in the gym, he's fit, winning medals again and now looking forward to a sizzling few months.
The World Championships in Glasgow maybe on the horizon for the Sky Scholar, even throughts of the Rio Olympics are creeping in, but for now Oldham is happy to be competing again.
Impressing at the English and British Championships in his first competition on all six apparatus, the 22-year-old from Nottingham then dazzled at the European Championships in Montpellier two weeks ago with an excellent sixth in the all-round and just missed out on high bars gold.
Here's Sam's latest blog on a few scares and bumps on the big stage, the drama of going for gold and then losing his precious medal! Did he find it again? Read on.....
Sitting on the plane leaving France I had a brief smile on my face. For me the goal was to make these European Championships and compete in the all-around. To come away with a high bar silver is awesome and I'm proud of myself and how I competed.
It was the first time I've competed in an all-around final as a senior and after a couple mistakes in qualifying I really wanted to hit a clean competition in the final.
I began on rings and after a good start I had a grip issue but somehow managed to get through. It was pretty scary actually. I was praying I just didn't slip off towards the end of the routine. So when I landed the dismount it was a bit of a relief and I had my first routine under my belt.
Next up was the vault. I did a good solid job with just a step forward. Parallel bars was next and I started really well but on one of my long hand skills I slipped. I didn't fall but it affected my difficulty a great deal and my score suffered.
High bar was next and I knew I had to dig deep. I went for a more difficult routine with a 6.8 start value. It was a great routine with a stuck dismount and I was incredibly happy.
Next the floor. It was a big improvement from the first day with a score of 14.766. The final apparatus was the pommel and I was last up. I really wanted to hit this routine. I felt it was an important moment for me personally. I kept as calm as I could under the circumstances and I went through the routine really well for 14.666.
Still that magic 15.00 mark on the pommel escapes me but I'm getting closer and closer!
I finished sixth which I was happy with. There were some errors but I knew just how tough the last eight months have been. To finish with a clean six piece competition is all I could ask for.
It was also great to see my good friend Dan Purvis win bronze. We were roommates for the trip too. On to Sunday and the high bar final!
It was in a way familiar territory for me. I had competed already in three high bar European finals, medalling in two, so I was relatively calm. However, I knew that the previous eight months I had worked incredibly hard to get myself back to this point and on the team.
I couldn't help but think about trying to get a medal so that I had something to show for it for myself more than anything. I was fifth up in the final.
As the first few guys competed there were mistakes. I sensed it was a nervy final as it was very open. High bar is a tough apparatus to stay relaxed on. At the end of the day you're flying around a steel bar and when you let go you have to catch it again!
I didn't pay too much attention to others before my routine. The crowd was awesome and I tried my best to take it all in. The routine went really well. My release and catch skills were caught almost perfectly.
I went through my turning skills well. None of them were far off handstand which is the place you can get deducted heavily on high bar. I tried my best to stick the dismount but had to take a small hop backward.
In the end that cost me the gold but I haven't trained dismounts much at all the last month as I've been saving my ankle as much as possible.
Infact the only dismounts I landed off high bar the whole time I was in France were the three days of competition! So it was a tough ask to stick at the end of what's seemed a long four months of preparation.
All in all I'm very happy with how my Europeans went. If you'd have told me at Christmas I'd be coming home with a silver, a sixth in the all-around and a healthy ankle I don't think I'd have believed you.
It's a credit to the support I've received from Sky that I've managed to come back so quickly from such a serious injury. I'm incredibly appreciative of how much of an impact their help is having on my gymnastics.
I'm now in a great place heading into the summer and with the Worlds on the horizon I'm excited to get back into the gym and continuing to work as hard as possible.
I did manage to leave my medal at drug testing and almost exactly the same time as I realised my mum texted me to say look after your medal...... Sorry mum! Luckily I was able to get my medal back and my mum is none the wiser.
Sam Oldham is one of 12 athletes being supported through the Sky Academy Sports Scholarships scheme.
The Scholarships offer a programme of support tailored to each athletes specific requirements covering areas such as funding, media coaching, mentoring and wider developmental support.
