JOSH Teelow is a twelve year old with big dreams.

Recently, Josh has travelled from Pindimar to represent NSW on the Australian stage in men’s gymnastics.

He headed to Queensland with his NSW team mates, coming home with a gold medal for the NSW team, a second position overall and placements for four of six apparatuses.

The journey to his success in Queensland has been a long one.

With gyms closed in NSW due to COVID, Josh had to make do with Zoom training.

However, Josh maintained his commitment and earned his spot in the team.

“We had a setup with the iPad and we would do Zoom training.

“Outside, I had the Pommel and lots of room to train there but when we got back in the gym, we had to work so much harder to get back on track,” Josh said.

To earn a place on the NSW team, he had to undertake two state qualifiers and a state championship, where he was first place on five of six apparatuses, coming second in the state.

Josh has worked extremely hard for six years to get to this point, and even trains in Sydney, but has always been a very strong and flexible person.

“When he was about three and half he had socks on and we had wooden floors.

“I was cooking away in the kitchen and I heard him yell ‘Mum look at me’ and there he was, in full splits and at that moment we knew we had to get him into some sort of kindy gym and it just grew from there,” Josh’s mum Jade Teelow said.

“For about twelve months I think he forgot he had feet because he was walking around the house and everywhere on his hands,” she joked.

With dreams of representing Australia in the Olympics or Commonwealth Games, Josh gave some advice.

“If it’s hard just push through it, anything that is hard you’ve just got to imagine what it’s going to be like when you can do it and how easy it will get.”

Congratulations on an amazing success.

 

By Tara CAMPBELL