Bonnybridge gymnast, Stephen Tonge (11), one of the youngest and newest athletes in the Central Scotland Institute of Sport, helped the Scottish team win the Celtic Cup under 13 event in Perth last weekend. He also won an individual gold medal in the event.

Stephen, 11 years old, coached by Andrew Webb at the Falkirk Club and one of 26 British gymnasts in the British Performance squad, was selected to compete in the event following good scores in November’s British Open.
 
The Celtic Cup is a four way international with Scotland facing Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland. Each gymnasts must perform full routines on all six pieces of apparatus.  Wales had dominated the Celtic Cup for the last five years, a trend which was ended by Scotland this year.
 
“Stephen had competed the previous weekend at the London Open in the under 14 category as preparation for the Celtic Cup and struggled through a couple of setbacks including a fall on the pommels,” said his coach, Andrew Webb.
 
“This weekend was a different story as Stephen competed pretty cleanly with no falls despite a couple of knocks, living up to his British squad nickname as the ‘terrier’.
 
“We had a good feeling that the team would improve on last year where most of them were young, inexperienced and on their first outing at the Celtic Cup.  But it was still a really nice surprise when the result was announced and we heard that our team had won. The excitement was then doubled when we realised Stephen had taken gold.”
 
This January Stephen joined the Central Scotland Institute of Sport, which provides high performance expertise to Scotland’s potential world class talent - its expert teams work together to deliver essential support services locally in sports medicine, sports science, strength and conditioning, and career and lifestyle guidance.
 
It’s huge commitment for Stephen but he has shown enormous dedication to the sport.
 
“I began gymnastics when I was in nursery as a four year old, I enjoyed it from the start and have been doing it ever since,” said Stephen.  “I train six days a week, for between three and seven hours a day.”