Sam tastes victory at last

Britain’s Sam Oldham- the 17-year-old triple junior champion finally had the sweet taste of victory on Sunday, the eighth day of the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore . He beat seven other competitors to take home the gold for the horizontal bar finals in artistic gymnastics, capping an eventful week which proved that coveted medal can sometimes prove ever so elusive.

When it came for his turn to shine at the individual all-around finals last Wednesday, Sam crashed out twice and it was Japan’s Yuya who took home the gold for that event and Sam had to settle for fifth place.

Despite his loss and obvious disappointment, Sam had plenty of opportunities to shine during the the individual apparatus finals. The first event of the weekend was the finals of the floor exercise. Sam came in fifth.

Next up was the finals of the pommel horse. Sam climbed to second place with a score of 13.925 points, just 0.025 points behind Ukraine’s Oleg Stepko. For most athletes, it would have been excellent; but for Sam, it probably just wasn’t enough.

Two more individual apparatus events lay ahead on the final day of the artistic gymnastics finals. The first was the men’s parallel bars finals. Whereas Oleg came at the top of the medal tally, Sam had to contend for fourth.

And so it all came down to the one last event of the day and the final event of artistic gymnastics at the YOG- the horizontal bar finals. Sam was the first of the eight boys to perform and he clocked in a score of 14.375 points to taste the victory.