City of Birmingham gymnast hasn’t given up on the Olympics

Due to the Coronaivirus British Gymnastics made the conscious decision to cancel all national competitions, including Olympic qualifying.

Along side the championships being cancelled the Olympic games was also postponed until 2021, for 15 year old Taeja James, this wasn’t completely bad news.

“I was uncertain as to what was going to happen for selection and i believe some people had already been chosen for the games,” said Taeja

However this didn’t mean she was completely out of the running.

After battling several injuries over the years, Taeja felt like have another year for preparation for the games was a good thing.

Olympic trials have been scheduled to happen next year, but the date is yet to be released by British Gymnastics.

In the mean time, Taeja has been completing home training during the lock down, as there is still an uncertainty as to what will happen for the next competitive season.

its important to her to keep her fitness up and continue to train as she dose not know if she will be going to the Olympics and she needs to be ready for whats to come.

“I was gutted when i found out that British was cancelled, but theirs’ plenty more for me in the future.”

Once Taeja and her coach is familiar with the new policies that British Gymnast put in place, they will come up with a plan to better her chances of getting selected.

She was part of the on the Gymnastic Worlds team and helped the women’s artistic team that finished 6th place in the team final of the 2019 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, this also meant the team has qualified for the Olympics.

After the announcement of the championships. British Gymnastics said;

“We can then begin to make more long-term plans for our Olympic Programmes and support our gymnasts to enable them to come back even stronger. We look forward to them being able to deliver amazing performances”

British Gymnast also agrees with the decision to postpone the Olympic games and will work with the Federation International Gymnastique (FIG) looking at the new Olympic programmes and qualification system.