ANDREW MORRIS
a gymnast’s tale

I’m Andrew Morris. I was a gymnast, competed in the Olympic Games in 1984 (Los Angeles) and 1988 (Seoul). I was born in Swansea, and I’ve lived here all my life. I’ve travelled all over the world with my sport, but I still remain in Swansea because it’s a fantastic place to live.

I started gymnastics when I was eleven in one of the secondary schools in Swansea, quite late for a gymnast. My PE teacher encouraged me. His name was Leigh Jones, and he was a competitive gymnast himself, at the time. He inspired me. He must have seen something in me. At the time I was doing other sports, playing football, and I just went to gymnastics because I enjoyed the variety that it gave me.

Training

In my time, my personal trainer had a job, so he could only be with me in the evenings. I used to train in the mornings for three hours and then another three hours every evening, and we did that five or six days a week, quite rigorous. It takes a lot of work. On the men’s side, we have six disciplines – floor, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars and high bar. It’s not like playing football where it’s just one skill. The variety is what interested me.

If you’re going to do the sport, you do it 100%. There’s no point doing it 50%, because you’re wasting your time. So, you do it 100% at the time and then you look at your career and you decide when you’re going to finish. You concentrate 100% until that time.

Diet

Food’s really important. Whatever you do in gymnastics, you’re carrying your body weight around all the time. You’re lifting your body weight, so, if you’re eating the wrong foods and you’re too heavy, then it’s more difficult to compete and train.

What you have to do is have a balanced diet which gives you a lot of energy without giving you a lot of starch, food that’s going to sit on you.

Winning

Gymnastics is an individual sport. Everybody wants to be the best. So, even though you are competing in a team, you still have to do an individual performance. It’s not like a sport like rugby where you can have a bad game but still win or have a good game and lose. With gymnastics, it’s what you do as an individual. You’re friendly with all the other competitors and you want your nation to do well, but you also want to do better than the others. That’s where the competition comes in.

My first major memorable occasion was winning my first British Championship. The second one was being selected by my country to represent them at the Olympic Games. My first major competition, outside of Britain, was the World Championships in 1981, in Moscow, in the Soviet Union. I’ve also done the Commonwealth Games, European Championships, World Championships and then, the biggest of them all, the Olympic Games.

I’ve won quite a few Welsh Championship titles, ten in a row. I won five British Championships in a row, and I competed in the European Championships and was the highest of the Western gymnasts. My involvement in competitions has taken me all over the world. I’ve done most of Europe, most of the Eastern bloc countries, as well as South Africa, Japan, China, Australia and America. My favourite was New Zealand.

I think the Seoul Olympics (1988) was probably the most difficult competition for me. It was a major Olympics and that meant all the countries were there, the biggest Olympics after the boycotts of 1980 and ‘84. Also, I got injured in training when I was out there, so, three days before, I was suffering. It was a case of recovering and trying to get ready for the event.

You always get nervous at the events. All I used to do when I was stood on a podium in a major event was to think, “Well, I’ve done all the background training, I’ve done all the work in the gym, done all the routines I need. If it goes wrong, then it’s going to go wrong. Just go with the flow”.

Dreams

After I retired from competition, I went into coaching and then from coaching into administration and management, allowing other people to bring coaches and gymnasts through so they can experience the world of gymnastics like I did.

Gymnastics is different. It’s very technical. It’s very difficult to come from outside of gymnastics and learn how to provide the skills for the kids without having felt it yourself. You need to feel being upside down, being in fear. Physically feeling the sport. I think when you spend your life learning the technical skills of gymnastics, you’ve got a lot of knowledge and not to go into coaching is a waste. I’ve had some successes. I had three gymnasts who have gone to the Commonwealth Games and one of those gymnasts is actually coaching another gymnast who is going to another Commonwealth Games. You’ve passed on skills to your performers and they’re carrying it on, so that’s been great, the thing I’m very proud of, to be honest.

My dream is to introduce as many people as possible to the sport that’s given me such a good lifestyle, great memories.

from one year old

I would say to most parents, put your children into pre-school gymnastics, what we call Tumblies. They can do that from one year old up to three years old, so they learn how to handle their bodies, how to be coordinated. It’s a foundation for all other sports. I’m now working with Swansea City Council as Sports Development Officer. I run the Swansea Gymnastics Centre. We’re just taking on a recreational gymnastic coordinator whose going to go to all schools, all leisure centres to introduce children earlier to gymnastics and gymnastics competitions between schools and leisure centres.

Nationally, gymnastics has never been higher profile with the recent European and World Championships in London where the British gymnasts are winning medals, prior to the Olympic Games. Profile is increasing. It’s never going to be one of the main sports like football, rugby, tennis, but it’s definitely increasing in popularity.

2012

I think it was fantastic for Wales to have the result it did at Beijing, based on the investment it put in over the pre-Games build-up. I think it’s fantastic for the nation. Wales is a small country within Great Britain, 5% of the population, I think, and for us to get 5% of the athletes into the British Olympic team is all we have to do to be achieving, but we’re over-achieving that. We’re getting more and more athletes.

Now Wales is trying to get as many gymnasts, athletes, swimmers and other sportspeople into the team that will allow Great Britain to do well at the 2012 Games. I think, with a home Olympic Games, it’s a good opportunity for us to win. If you look at the history of home Games across the years, it leads to unusual wins, based on the passion that you have competing in front of your home nation.