Mention the subject of competing at the Paris Olympics to Team GB gymnast Jake Jarman and you can almost see his face light up at the thought of it.
Becoming an Olympian in any sport involves a lot of personal sacrifice.
And it is perhaps appropriate that Jarman’s childhood dream will come true in the city where the late Edith Piaf sang ‘Non, je ne regrette rien’.
“Growing up and taking time out of school to spend time in the gym and really focus on my craft, it took away from my social life growing up a little bit,” he told BBC Look East.
“That was a personal choice of mine and I knew the consequences.
“There have been family events that I’ve missed out on because I might have a training camp or a competition but I’d do it all over again – I don’t regret one moment or decision that I’ve made.”
The past couple of years have been a whirlwind of success for the 22-year-old from the famous Huntingdon Gymnastics Club in Cambridgeshire – and have been crowned by his inclusion in the 13-strong GB squad for the Paris Games, which begin on 26 July.
In that time, he has won 14 major medals, including eight golds – one World title, three European crowns and four Commonwealth triumphs.
And it is all the result of sitting in the Huntingdon gym at the age of 10 and watching club-mate Louis Smith compete at London 2012.
“The first memory I have of wanting to be an Olympian was in 2012,” Jarman recalled.
“We were watching Louis in the pommel horse final, we had a massive projector screen on the wall, and I thought ‘yeah, I want to be a part of this’.
“From that moment on, I pretty much dedicated every single day to being able to achieve that dream.
“Now I’m in a position where I’ve got a lot of athletes and people that look up to me – I feel like I’ve got, not a responsibility, but the privilege of being able to help inspire the next generation in the same way Louis did to myself as a young kid.”
‘Dystopian’ experience in Tokyo
Having competed at the European Championships in 2021, while still a teenager, Jarman was chosen as travelling reserve for the Tokyo Olympics later that year.
It was not the kind of experience he had hoped for, with Covid restrictions still in place, but it added further fuel to the fire of his ambition.
“I was first reserve and I was so close to being part of that team,” he recalled. “At the time it was, for me, quite unexpected and it was a massive motivational boost.
“To actually be part of a team where I’ve got people I used to look up to and still look up to, going to the Olympics together, it’ll be crazy, because in Tokyo there was no one spectating because of Covid.
“There wasn’t that atmosphere of togetherness – everyone had to be separated, there was social distancing, it felt fairly dystopian there.
“Now all the restrictions have been lifted and it’ll be like a normal Olympics again [in Paris]. I can’t wait to explore and interact with different sports and be able to freely roam around.”
Over-confidence ‘doesn’t work’
Jarman has won team, all-around and floor exercise medals since 2022 but it is the vault that is his speciality.
On form, an Olympic medal on debut appears to be his for the taking and would be the pinnacle of his career so far, but although Jarman is unfazed by any weight of expectation, he is taking nothing for granted.
“It would be an absolute dream come true to come back with an Olympic medal but I don’t want to put that pressure on myself,” he said.
“I’d hate to look back on an Olympic experience and say ‘I wish I’d enjoyed it more, I wish I’d taken everything in’ – I just want to be able to have fun and look back and think of it as a good memory, rather than a bad one.
“There have definitely been times with more stressful situations than others but I feel the reason I deal with it so well is because I go with the attitude of just doing what I can and enjoying it.
“I’ve tried the other mentality – ‘I’m going to do this, I’m going to win’ – being a bit too over-confident and it doesn’t work. It makes me compete differently to how I train and that’s when you make mistakes.”
Olympics mean ‘the absolute world’
Unlike most other gymnastic disciplines, the vault is over in a flash – but Jarman believes it is crucial to follow a “strategic and very laid out” visualisation process.
“I imagine myself running down the vault run, hitting the vault table and landing the vault, nailing it – and then I visualise it again but from a third person’s point of view, a spectators’ perspective,” he said.
“Then, I just try and shut out every single thought that goes through my head. It’s quite hard to do that when you’ve got a lot of emotions running through you.
“You finish the routine within 10 seconds. For that, I feel like it works best when I don’t think.”
What Jarman will be thinking about in Paris, when not competing, is all the people who have helped him on his journey to that point.
“I’ve been part of this [Huntingdon] club since I was a little kid and to be able to go to the Olympic Games, which is the biggest event in this sport, is such a massive achievement,” he added.
“Thinking back on my earliest memories of gymnastics to now, I can’t believe I’ve made it this far.
“Regardless of how well I do I’ll have made a lot of people proud – close friends and family, especially people like my nan who has been a massive supporter of my career throughout my whole life. It means the absolute world to me.”
