We were thrilled to catch up with Luke Whitehouse recently, Olympic Gymnast, an English, British and Double European Senior Floor Champion, and of course, former Tumble Tot! Luke is currently taking a well-deserved holiday following the Paris Olympics 2024, and has kindly agreed to talk to us about his journey from Tumble Tots to the Olympics.
Paris 2024 Olympic Games – wow! Can you share any highlights with us about what it was like to compete?
A dream come true. The whole Olympics was a brilliant experience that exceeded anything I could have ever imagined. Team GB provided us with everything we could possibly want. The kit was fantastic, and we received so much of it! Competing alongside one of my childhood heroes, Max Whitlock OBE was incredible. It was a really strong men’s team made up of five of us. We qualified for the team Final in 3rd, but in the Final just missed out on medalling coming 4th beaten by Japan, China and USA. The pressure of competing at an Olympics you can’t really replicate, I guess it’s like taking a penalty in the World Cup Final.
Personally, it was fantastic to qualify for the Floor Final. My goal was to win gold, but I had to settle for 6th best in the world, due to a technical ruling on one of my landings. This final was one of the highest scoring and best I’ve ever seen, and it was incredible to be part of it. I enjoyed every moment.
How did you prepare, both physically and mentally, for Paris 2024? Will you do anything differently looking ahead to LA28?
I train at both the National Sports Centre at Lilleshall and Leeds Gymnastics Club 33 hours a week, 6 days a week. As an all-around gymnast, I compete across all 6 pieces of artistic apparatus: Floor, Pommel, Rings, Vault, Parallel Bars and High Bar. To prepare there is lots of repetition of the individual elements for each piece of apparatus, for example, my first tumble on Floor is a Tripleback somersault which I have now done hundreds of times. We do lots of part and full routines that we will perform in competition. Alongside this we do lots of conditioning, but recovery is just as important, so alongside eating healthy, sleeping, we use the sauna and cold therapy (ice bath) and massage to ease our muscles. The physiotherapists are really important in helping keep our bodies fit. The mental side is tough, I do a lot of visualisation of the routines and we do have psychologists to help us, but much is just trying to keep relaxed and believing in ourselves. We could not compete at this high level without the National Lottery and players who help fund gymnastics and the athletes so we can focus on the training, so grateful to them. For LA28 it will be much of the same, but I will hopefully increase the routine difficulties to improve my scores all-round.
I am coached by Andy Butcher, Dave Murray and Tom Rawlinson based in Leeds, alongside working closely with the National Coach, Baz Collie.
At what age did you realise you wanted to pursue gymnastics professionally?
I played lots of sports when I was younger which I think was important. I took part in athletics, tennis, swimming, football and others, including my gymnastics until I was about 9 or 10 years old, competing in all, so could have gone a number of directions. I slowly had to decide what sports I wanted to focus on, as each activity started to increase the hours they needed me to train. From the age of 9 my dream to was to compete at the Olympics with London 2012 the catalyst, but it was always as a gymnast. I loved the gymnastics, so committed to that from the age of about 12, but then realised getting into the national squad never mind getting to an Olympics wasn’t going to be easy… I eventually was selected into the Junior National Squad when I was 17, competing at the European Youth Olympic Festival in Azerbaijan and at the Junior World Championships in Hungary that year. It was only then I believed I could pursue a gymnastics career at a Senior level, but it is so tough to get selected for an Olympic team as there are so many really good British gymnasts.
What advice would you give to young gymnasts aspiring to reach the Olympic level?
The first and most important bit is to enjoy your sport and make friends and create memories along the journey. The Olympics is an aspiration, so it is important to have small incremental and achievable goals. Train hard and believe in the process. There are lots of challenges to overcome at whatever level you aspire, so your resilience is vital, don’t give in and fight for what you want. Enjoy the successes, but understand things won’t always go to plan. You won’t always get selected for the team/squad when you think you should or you may pick up injuries, so don’t expect everything to come easily or straight away. To get to the top of any sport and in particular to get to the Olympics there will be lots of sacrifices along the way, missing social occasions, parties or holidays with family & friends as you’re training or competing. The key is to remember to enjoy what your doing.
Do you think attending Tumble Tots contributed to your love for gymnastics?!
Tumble Tots I believe gave me a great start and a solid grounding for my future career in gymnastics. Having fun whilst inadvertently learning so much about yourself and your own body, how to balance, agility & physical confidence at that age is incredibly important. The amount of people who I have spoken to, including athletes in other sports in Paris who were proud to say they used to do gymnastics when they were younger was unbelievable. Tumble Tots and gymnastics clearly produce great all-round athletes.
Thank you so much to Luke for taking the time to talk to us and to Luke’s Dad for finding this photo of Luke (left) and his brother Joshua in their Tumble Tots t-shirts 20 years ago!
