Behind the scenes at Jake Jarman's gym as the Peterborough gymnastics ace goes for Olympic gold in Paris

Peterborough Telegraph

The Peterborough Telegraph visits Huntingdon Gymnastics Club, the training centre of Team GB gold medal hopeful, Peterborough's Jake Jarman.

Transcript

00:00Hey Grace, I'd like to ask you about your first memories of when you first kind of came

00:19across Jake.

00:20Well, Jake was a member of our junior boys program when I first started back at the club

00:26in 2011, and as a young gymnast, full of energy, full of beans, like most young boys are within

00:33our program, but at the time he had some great attributes as a gymnast, but so did many other

00:40gymnasts at that age, and I wouldn't say he was a standout gymnast at that age, but he

00:45had some wonderful qualities, tried hard, and sort of was a little bit of a late bloomer

00:51I guess.

00:52Yeah, what would you say were some of his star qualities as a gymnast?

00:58Obviously amazing understanding of his spatial awareness and ability to twist, he is somebody

01:05that can take on board learning and take on criticism and sort of react in a really positive

01:13way and sort of start to understand, right I need to tweak this and go again and tweak

01:18this and go again, because obviously when you watch gymnastics you normally just see

01:23the finished article on television and actually there's 300, 400, 500, 600 goes that have

01:28gone about saying something's not been quite right, so you've tweaked it and changed it

01:31and tweaked it and changed it, and that ability to do that is what sort of stands most gymnasts

01:37apart and those that get really up to the top have that ability.

01:41You must have watched him for many years, a lot of hours, a lot of training sessions,

01:45you must have seen a big change in him.

01:48I think the biggest change I guess from watching him, Ben's his personal coach who worked with

01:55him all the way through since he was a young lad, is watching him develop as a young person

02:00into a young adult and now into an adult with us, he's started to take ownership of his

02:05programme to the stage about actually now he fully takes ownership of his programme

02:09and watching Ben, his coach, adapt his coaching style from being actually the person driving

02:15the programme to very much facilitating and advising and allowing Jake to drive his own

02:20programme and that's, I think that's been the most impressive thing I've seen from Jake.

02:26You must be very proud as well as a club manager here having someone like Jake.

02:30Massively proud, I mean we're proud of all of our gymnasts and we're in a very privileged

02:35position because we get to work with young people and see them grow and develop and achieve

02:41wonderful things and yeah it's something that, you know, that's what we strive to do is to

02:48allow gymnasts to reach their potential, whatever that potential is, I mean we've got a broad

02:53spectrum of gymnasts that come through the door but to have someone right at the top end of the

02:57sport inventing his own skills like the Jarman and having the ability to perform right at the

03:05top end of sort of Olympic standard gymnastics is amazing.

03:10Hoping for an Olympic gold potentially?

03:13He has the ability and as do many others in the field and it's who can do it on the day.

03:24Great, yeah so I wanted to ask you about your first memories of when you first met

03:27Jake and kind of yeah your memories of him as a young gymnast.

03:31Yeah so I came to the club in 2018 and when I first arrived Jake was

03:37already doing some phenomenal work and I was really impressed with everything I saw and

03:43the relationship that Ben and Jake had and how they worked well together to

03:49kind of keep things developing and improving and it was wonderful to watch.

03:54Okay and how much, you must have seen a lot of, you spent a lot of hours here, a lot of time,

03:58you've seen a lot of change in him over the years you've been here.

04:01Um yeah I mean when I started he was like a teenager, he's an adult now, he's a man now

04:08and watching him kind of transition through that phase of being a junior gymnast to a senior

04:15gymnast and him wanting it more and more and more has been fantastic to see and you know I'm sure

04:22Ben would be a testament to kind of that great journey that Jake's been on and will know far

04:28more about it than I ever would.

04:30So what are you, what have you been impressed most about Jake from the journey that you've

04:34seen him go on, what are you most impressed about him?

04:37One of the first things that I ever really remember about Jake is his phenomenal spatial

04:42awareness, he knows where he is in the air all the time and it's amazing to watch someone with that

04:51natural talent putting it then to good use and working hard with it and the end result of talent

04:57and hard work coming together is just phenomenal, phenomenal to watch.

05:01Yeah it must be great for all these young gymnasts we can see here and all the many

05:04kind of thousands you have to have someone like Jake to look up to you think?

05:07Yeah I you know I coach a lot of really young boys as well and they come in the gym and they're so

05:13excited to see Jake, they're so excited to say hello and they want to be the next Jake Jarman

05:19and it's inspiring, it's inspiring to see that kind of effect that one person can have on a

05:25whole culture and a whole community.

05:27And hopes of Paris, can we maybe see a gold medalist from Huntington Gymnastics Club?

05:31Oh well fingers crossed absolutely, not fingers crossed, we know it, we know it!

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