YMCA Barry have been celebrating the tremendous achievements of Josh Cook over the last three weeks where Josh has competed in weekly competitions.

Josh Cook is on the long list for the Welsh Men’s Artistic Gymnastics team for the 2018 Commonwealth Games. This has meant that Josh will compete at many competitions as trials leading up to the final selection for the Welsh Commonwealth Games.

Josh has certainly made a promising start to fulfil his ambition of gaining selection to the Games by his competition results over the last three weekends.

The first competition was the British Championships where Josh competed against the best gymnasts in the county in the under-18s category.

Josh had a fantastic competition where he earned fifth on pommel horse, third on floor, third on vault and overall where all six apparatus scores are combined Josh received fifth place.

To top the weekend off, Josh’s floor mark gained him a place in the master’s floor final.

The final consists of the top eight male gymnasts from all the age category which included gymnasts who competed in the Rio Olympics. In the final Josh came a respectable seventh place.

These incredible results portrayed that the hard work Josh and coach Pete Haysham are putting into these performances is truly paying off.

The second trial was the Welsh Championships in Cardiff where Josh achieved second overall. This was then followed by the English Championships where Josh competed as a guest gymnast.

Josh again competed against some of the best gymnasts in Britain and claimed fifth overall. This result was again fantastic for the build up towards the Games and importantly Josh increased his personal best by two and a half marks.

It is safe to say Josh has gone a long way to earning his spot on the team with these impressive results.

Josh will now be back to his intensive training, focusing on increasing the difficulty of his routines ready for his next competition in three months time which will hopefully bring about even more success.

YMCA Barry have classes suitable from 18 months and have specialist coaches teaching gymnastics in Preschool, Women’s Artistic, Men’s Artistic, Rhythmic and Cheerleading. For more information please ring 01446 724000 or email sophie@ymcabarry.org.uk