His own words:
I began gymnastics in a local gymnastics club at the age of 4 and was chosen to be part of the high performance centre 3 years later in 1989. I have now been at the high performance centre for 16 years, training between 25-30 hours a week.
I have been representing Australia since 1996 as a junior athlete and making my senior international debut in 1999 at the age of 16 being the youngest Australian male gymnast to make a World Championships team. Since then, over the next 5 years I have experienced the highs and lows in my sporting career -from making the Sydney Olympics and achieving a silver and bronze medals at the 2002 Commonwealth Games to the heart break of injuring myself in 2003 which left me incapable of training for nearly 12 months and also unable to even attempt to qualify myself for the Athens Olympics.
I had decided to defer my university studies after some bad experiences with combining my sporting 25 - 30 hour a week training and competition schedule with my education in 2001 however this injury gave me a real reality check. “At 20 years of age and in one single moment my career would be over”.
After talking to many athletes and people within the sporting community I decided to begin my university studies again to help bring balance into my life. However this time I decided to do something different. I changed universities to Griffith, following their highly regarded reputation of sporting support.
Two years has now passed since the injury and I have fought my way back into the National Training Squad and have just made my come back into the National Team competing in the Australia vs. Great Brittan test (11-4-2005) and will be leaving for the world cup in Belgium in late April. Now with the assistance of Griffith University I know I will be able to combine my sporting and educational goals which I had not believed possible before.
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Paul Hamm is hot. He also looks corn fed which is a bonus. Unfortunately, he could miss the 2008 Olympics because of a broken right hand.
His own words: