While most of us spend our evenings and weekends relaxing and spending time with family and friends, Year 8 Writhlington Student, Zoe Simmons, spends thirty hours a week, on top of school and homework, training with prestigious gymnastics groups across the country in the hope of reaching the 2020 Olympics.

Zoe began her year training for the the Welsh Championships, held in Cardiff, in February. The competition saw Zoe compete in the ‘Junior’ squad for the first time against some incredibly well trained gymnasts from across Wales, following in the footsteps of her grandfather, who competed in athletics for the same teams. Despite competing against some second year Juniors, Zoe walked away with a Silver Medal.

With very little rest between, she began training for the Glasgow British Championships, where she competed on all disciplines, coming home with the British Team Championships title. Just a week later, Zoe travelled to Loughborough for the English Championships and was placed fourth overall and Bronze on vault, beating many second year juniors.

Just weeks away from Rio selections, Zoe travelled to the Liverpool Echo Arena to compete at one of the biggest showpiece events in the gymnastic calendar, winning the title of British Floor Champion 2016. She said: “It was really exciting to be at this competition – it’s one of those rare events where we get to see the boys compete, too. I saw Louis Smith MBE and Max Whitlock perform and it was really inspiring.”

Zoe is now training for the European Championships to be held in Switzerland at the end of this month, where she has been selected to represent Great Britain.