Interview: An Olympic medal -and experience- much cherished by Harry Hepworth (GBR)

21-year-old Harry Hepworth had a fabulous Olympic year. Making his senior international debut in 2023, the Leeds native built on this experience throughout 2024 as he competed at the European Championships and the Olympic Games.

Typically held in spring, the European Championships provide a first big test of gymnasts’ routines and their competitive readiness, Hepworth explains: “It's been amazing because you see all these people that you're competing against at the other World Cups. So it's always familiar faces at the Euros. And it's good to see what everyone's doing! When it is coming up to Worlds, you'll have seen them previously at Euros, knowing what to expect from them. There's a nice camaraderie between every gymnast there as well, because we've all got the same goal in mind. We all want to be on that podium. So both the experiences have been amazing for me.”

Held only every 4 years, the Olympic Games are every athlete’s dream. “To be out there with the team that was there, it was amazing”, Hepworth recalls. “We'd all come together in the prep camps beforehand and the routines we were just hitting them. It was going perfect. I had a back injury so I couldn't do floor but I still could manage to do vault, so I did that for the team and I did rings for the team to be up on the podium with the boys. [Finishing fourth] was slightly painful at first, but when you put it into perspective and realise what we actually did during that competition, I think you can only take positives from it and next time work that bit harder and we'll go for the gold. I always aim to enjoy the competitions.”

Having Jake Jarman by his side meant a lot to Hepworth. Especially when they both won a medal in the same afternoon. “Because we've been training with each other for probably 2 years now. We've seen the amount of hard work each puts in. It was just amazing to share the whole experience with him. We had all the media stuff the next day and that night. It was a pleasure to do it all with him. ”

Now Hepworth is an Olympic medallist, he talks us through that winning feeling.

After their competition, all medallists got the invitation to celebrate at Champions Park, a concept introduced at the Paris Olympics. “That was just crazy. I think they said 13,000 people sat in the stands. I didn't know that many people would show up to something like that either. I didn't know what to expect. And we're walking pretty much under the Eiffel Tower. That day was amazing. There's so many people there. It was really packed. Otherwise I didn't really celebrate too much to be fair. Straight after I won the medal and I'd done my drugs test and did a little bit of media, I had to go back to the village and then I had about, I think it was 10 minutes from getting to the entrance to being back out and going to the team GB house to do media. And in that 10 minutes, I went to the village restaurant, got myself -I think it might have been 2- full margarita pizzas. I scoffed them down and bear in mind I had the white tracksuit on from the podium, I got all the pizza juice on it. Spilt loads because I was rushing to eat it all. It went down this arm and all down my trousers. That's how I initially celebrated. And then? We went out into Paris with Nile [Wilson], Ash Watson, Kristian Thomas and the rest of us lads, and Dom Cunningham. That was really nice as well. Throughout the week after, because we got kicked out of the village, we got free tickets to watch some of the sports. So we just watched all the sports for the rest of the week until the closing Ceremony.” The homecoming was another special moment. “I always like the train journeys back coming into Leeds because you're going into the centre. You see all the buildings you're familiar with. And it's my home. Straight away when I got back with my family, we're all in the living room and they'd got me a couple little presents. They had all the Union Jack flags out everywhere. Team GB flags in the living room. And then my girlfriend came round. She'd got me a few presents as well. It was amazing to share that with all my family and friends.” But did this Olympic medal really change his life? “That's a good question. It does change your life a bit. It's not as much as they say when they say, oh, it's a complete life changer. It is a bit, but at the end of the day, I'm still young, I've got goals to go to the next Olympics. I still work for that. So I think I came back to training like two days later. It's definitely a bit different because you get the odd person that knows who you are when you're out in public. You get these people that sort of look at you in a in a weird way, they know they've seen you somewhere, but they don't know who you are. So I've got a lot of those looks from people out. I usually get recognised at the local shop in Asda or something like that. I usually get people coming up to me and saying, oh, you're that athlete from the Olympics, the bronze medal. ‘Yeah, thank you very much’. So it is pretty cool. It is fairly life changing to be. And then there's lots of opportunities that come from it as well.” “Currently I haven't made an actual definite decision on this either yet. But I am potentially thinking of going back to doing all six pieces because I'm training them at the minute, but I'm not going to compete the next year because I don't see the point in the rush. But for next year, I want to just improve on the routines I've been doing. Do some new routines. Obviously it's a new code [of points], so we'll see what's happening with that. See what the scores are like and just push as far as I can. No rest for the wicked! If it's all going to plan and I'm actually committed to it because I don't want to half commit, because the pieces I'm doing at the minute are still at a really high level. I just need to have a proper think about it.”

And the icing on the cake? An invitation to Buckingham Palace with all the Team GB Paris 2024 medallists!

We’re hoping for many more excellent memories, Harry!