Gymnast Sam Oldham on his medals at British Championships and fight for Rio qualification
By Mark Ashenden
Last Updated: 28/08/16 8:44am
It's crunch time. Years of hard graft, early mornings, overcoming injuries, often battling friends for team spots and now it's down to one or two performances to see who makes the plane for Rio.
The next few weeks will be dramatic, nerve-shredding and exciting and gymnast Sam Oldham is right at the heart of the fight to secure a place in the British gymnastics team.
The English and British Championships have been key to this qualification journey in recent weeks with the European Championships up next in May in Bern.
Oldham has impressed over the last month but the 23-year-old from Nottingham is still tinkering with his routines and not taking anything for granted after his career-threatening injury at the Commonwealths in Glasgow two years ago.
Here are Sam's thoughts on his latest quests to reach the Olympics and how he's trying to stay calm...
My last event was the British Championships which is always massive being an Olympic year and being televised live - the anticipation was that little higher.
The Saturday competition was the All-Around event and also qualification for the apparatus finals the next day.
Having a sell-out crowd was amazing to experience as a gymnast. It wasn't so long ago I was competing in a sports hall in front of 200 people - most of which were family members at the National Championships.
It's testament to how far the sport has come in the last few years. I began my weekend on the Pommel Horse and performing on what is still a new routine for me I was always going to be a little tense at the start.
I made it through my routine, although with some execution errors and a couple of battles with the Horse kept my score down on my first piece. Next stop the Rings and a good solid routine for a 14.60. I always find the Rings a good event to help settle the nerves.
Vault came next which was solid with just a hop back on landing. Parallel Bars is always a challenge and I struggled with my grip. I made a great save and fought through the exercise. I was a little disappointed with my performance but the main thing in an All-Around competition is to go from start to finish without a fall.
High Bar came next and with my routine containing four release-and-catch elements it's always a great feeling to finish a clean routine. A good 14.850 set me up heading into my final event - the Floor.
Coming off the back of my World Cup bronze in Doha I knew I was capable of ending my competition on a high. I did a really clean routine scoring 15.150 which was a big positive step forward for me.
It's the highest score I've received on the Floor since my ankle injury and surgery in 2014. This gives me a lot of confidence for the next competitions.
But the biggest thing for me to take away from this competition was hitting 6/6 routines. That competition consistency and security is what I need at this stage of the year.
So on to finals day on the Sunday. I had three apparatus and first was the Rings. The routine started great, I held all my strength parts really well but fatigue set in at the end. I lost some execution errors on my final handstand but overall I was very pleased over both days and bodes well for the next few weeks of training and cleaning up the routine.
High Bar was next and I hit a much better routine technically and hit a high 6.8 Start Value. I got myself on the podium and finished with bronze which I was very pleased with. I also realised I'd now hit 8/8 routines for the weekend and going into my final routine I was eager to keep up that record.
It was a long weekend with less than 12 hours recovery between the two days. I knew I would have to dig deep to get through this tough event.
After my first tumble I knew I had enough steam left in the tank and I performed an almost identical routine as the previous day. I'm really happy with how this routine is coming together and heading into the next few weeks I'm looking to add a little difficulty to my first tumble.
This will take my difficulty score up from a 6.30 to a 6.60 which will be an important step forward. Overall it was a job well done at the British Championships. I came away with three bronze medals and 9 for 9 clean routines.
There's plenty for me to work on but this gives me a huge confidence boost and a great platform to build upon leading into the next competition.
I'm looking forward to having a lighter week in the gym and I'm hoping to get on the golf course and also watch some football on TV. Then it's back to business next week and I'll build again for the next step on my road to Rio.
WHAT'S COMING UP FOR OUR SCHOLARS...
MARCH 19 - May 2: Holly Bradshaw, training in USA
APRIL: Olivia Breen, training camp in Tenerife
MAY 22-30: Sam Oldham, European Championships in Switzerland
