EYES ON THE PRIZE
Jake is the ‘tiny tornado’ who’s gone down a storm
FOR a man who spends much of his life spinning and twisting through the air like a human corkscrew in a whirligig of explosive motion, Jake Jarman has a surprising alter ego.
Everybody needs a yin to their yang and when he is away from gymnastics Jarman enjoys being still. Very still.
“I like doing pencil drawings. I really like drawing eyes. I don’t know why,” he said.
“There’s just something about the middle part of the eye and doing it in such fine detail that’s quite nice.
“I feel like I can just switch off from gymnastics when I’m drawing.”
The eyes used to be up on display in his bedroom at his parents’ house in Peterborough where he still lives – which must have been vaguely disconcerting – but there are gold medals on show instead now. A lot of them.
Four from Birmingham – the biggest haul for an Englishman at the Commonwealth Games for 24 years – were quickly followed by two more, plus a bronze at the European Championships in Munich, after a breakthrough summer.
Now comes Liverpool and the World Championships which begin today, the potential cherry on top.
“I’m really happy with how it has gone so far but we want to do well in this comp,” he said.
“It’s also very familiar for us with staging the British Championships here, and we will have the crowd behind us. In Birmingham walking out and hearing everyone cheer for us gave me goosebumps.
“When you get to the world stage you have China, Japan and the US. It’s a big step up. “But our main goal as a team this year is trying to qualify for the Olympics and we need top three to do that.”
Jarman talks a lot about the team. He describes his Great Britain colleagues, who include European all-around champion Joe Fraser, as his other family. Achieving with them, he says, is his priority at these World Championships. But there are high hopes for Jarman in the individual events at the M&S Bank Arena too.
Having become the first British man to win the vault at a European Championships, he is one of the few gymnasts in the competition with the Yonekura – an aerial blur of three-and-ahalf twists – in his locker. The more difficult the move, the more points available.
“I did it for the first time in 2019 at a training camp. After that I practised it and mastered it,” he said. “I’ve always had a passion for floor and vault so I enjoy practising difficult skills. I never really got frustrated when I couldn’t do it. I just kept going.”
Jarman’s drive to perfect his art is reminiscent of his gymnastics idol Louis Smith, the Olympian who trained at the same Huntington gym.
At 5ft 2in, he is a tiny tornado described by Fraser as a wonderkid.
Having travelled as reserve to the Tokyo Games last year, Paris 2024 is beckoning as his stage. First, though, to book Great Britain’s ticket.