CHAPMANSLADE youngster Cameron Sinden is hoping that his glittering performance as this month’s Welsh Artistic Championships will be enough to earn him international honours.

The 14-year-old, a pupil at Matravers School in Westbury, took the overall bronze trophy in the boys’ U14 competition, as well as gold in the rings, with the teenager also achieving third-placed finishes in the floor, vault and parallel bars at the Sport Wales National Centre on March 1.

Sinden trains at the City of Bristol Gymnastics Centre under Romanian coach Paul Urzicã, brother of former Olympic gold medallist Marius, and qualifies for Wales through his grandmother.

And the youngster, who also helps out as a young leader at the Springboard gymnastics centre in Warminster, has his fingers crossed that he can earn a Welsh call-up and set himself on the path to an international career in the mould of his hero Louis Smith.

“Before the Welsh Championships, I was so nervous because it was the biggest competition I’d ever done,” said Sinden.

“But as soon as I got there, I realised that it was just like any other competition and I was happy to win the bronze and the gold on the rings.

“I’d love to get in the Wales squad and hopefully me doing well in Cardiff will get me picked.

“My favourite gymnast is (Olympic medallist) Louis Smith and I met him at a book signing last year.

“I asked him how he got so good at pommel and he said that he used to be really naughty in training, so his coach would send him up the rope, but he’d just mess about up there and look around the gym.

“So then his coach sent him off to do 100 spins on the pommel horse and that’s how he got so good – I’d love to be as good as him but I’m not naughty.”

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