Olympic dream burning brightly at Pegasus
Four Pegasus gymnasts are in the running to compete at next year’s Olympic Games.
Courtney Tulloch and James Hall have long been tipped for Tokyo, but the Maidstone club have a new recruit in Frank Baines, a former European junior champion who’s moved down from Southport.
Euan Cox, a multiple British junior champion, is also in the frame after joining the senior set-up.
Pegasus coach Ionut Trandaburu said: “I think, out of four, at least two will be in the team for Tokyo.
“Politically, it would be difficult to have four but, performancewise, they all have the ability. “In all honesty, to even have three boys, they would be worried to give that privilege to one club but you never know.
“Euan and Frank are doing really well and James and Courtney are on target.
“To have four would be unbelievable.”
Baines, who represented Scotland at last year’s Commonwealth Games, has relocated following the retirement of training partner Dan Purvis, who competed at London 2012. He’s known Tulloch, Hall and Trandaburu for years and the switch makes perfect sense. Baines, 23, said: “It’s good to have someone else to bounce off in training and I struggled towards the end of Dan’s career because he was dying down the amount of hours he did and I realised I just couldn’t do it on my own.
“Me, James and Courtney grew up on the junior programme together, so we’ve always been training with each other at Lilleshall, and I’ve come down here to the gym a fair few times in the past just for a little bit of training.
“I get on well with Ionut, he’s always been helpful when I’ve been at Lilleshall. There are a couple of places I could have moved to but I thought Pegasus was the best fit.
“I’m just hoping to add to it and bring what I can and change as many people to Liverpool supporters as possible!
“Toyko is the big aim. I’ve got competitions coming up in August and early September which are qualifications for the World Championships and if I make the team there it puts me in good stead for 2020.”
Hall and Tulloch fly to Japan today (Thursday) for a two-week training camp, with next year’s Games in mind. Trandaburu, who’s going with them, said: “The gym for the Olympics is not 100% functional but it will be soon. “We’ll stay very close to the Olympic Village, we’ll do the travel and acclimatise and learn a bit of the culture.
“I’m thrilled being the personal coach going with them and we’ll spend two weeks training with the Japanese squad.
“At the moment they’re the best in the world at gymnastics and hopefully we’ll learn something.”
Sam Mostowfi was eighth in the floor final at the World Junior Championships in Hungary last week.