BOOKER Gym Club’s Jack O’Brien shook off the handicap of not having a full size track to train on by breaking into the top-five of Great Britain’s best tumblers.

The 13-year-old surpassed all expectations with his star performance at the British Tumbling Finals at Liverpool’s Echo Arena last weekend.

He had not even been expected to qualify for the finals but he rose to the occasion at his first Federation of International Gymnasts event.

He had an outstanding competition on the Saturday nailing both his runs to qualify in the top eight for the finals on the Sunday. He then went on to land his final run and come fifth in the country at the top level of tumbling.

Kate Dutnall, the gym manager at Booker, said: “It is a major achievement.”

His success is even more remarkable given that the Booker club he has been with since he was five years-old does not even have the required 42-metre tumbling track, consisting of a 10-metre run-up, the regulation 25-metre track and a seven-metre landing mat.

Instead, Booker’s facility measures just 18 metres to cram the eight moves into, with no run up area and just a five-metre landing area.

Dutnall said: “His achievement is even more amazing given that we are the underdogs each time because we haven’t got a full length track but in one way it makes you stronger because you have to train in harder conditions. It shows we must be doing something right.

“As a club, this is the first of our gymnasts to step out of NDP and into Elite and we have a number of other tumblers who are on course to make this move.”  

O’Brien and the rest of the Booker tumblers supplement their training in High Wycombe with trips to longer tracks at Bracknell, Basingstoke and Andover.

With youth tumbling now having made it into the Olympics Booker Gym Club are hoping to extend their track in the future.