BEECHBORO gymnast Todd Brinkworth is aiming to move up the ranks in all apparatuses after winning his second-straight national medal on the pommel horse last month.
The West Coast Gymnasts Malaga member won the level 7 open pommel horse national title at the 2017 Australian Gymnastics Championships in Melbourne after he won bronze in 2016.
Brinkworth (17) said it was satisfying to bring home a gold medal for his club and WA and achieve his main goal for this year.
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READ NOW“When the score of 12.60 came up, I could hear the cheers of my teammates and all of the West Australian team in the arena,” he said.
“While attending nationals, I was able to see higher-level gymnasts compete in a world-class arena (which) gives me inspiration to learn the bigger skills that they perform.”
Brinkworth, who started gymnastics at the age of one, said he wanted to continue his strong results on the pommel horse.
“This will be challenging next year since I’m moving up to level 8 open but if I progress how I’d like to then there is still a good possibility that I can place top three again,” he said.
Brinkworth said his immediate goal was to recover from his wrist injury while his future goal was to improve difficulty in all apparatuses.
“To improve the difficulty on high bar and rings I need to fill a required category, which I should achieve by the time the next set of competitions come around,” he said.
“On the remaining apparatuses I need to execute harder skills to improve my difficulty score.”
He said he trained at least 16 hours a week after school and on weekends.
“I’m able to stay motivated because I find myself looking forward to training most days, as I enjoy both improving and learning new skills,” he said.
“The competition season also motivates me because I am by nature, a very competitive person and I want to achieve the best possible results.”
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