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A teenage whizz who is already designing apps is one of Ireland's next gymnastics hopes

Meet 18-year-old Jack Neill.

KIERAN BEHAN IS the one gymnast that every Irish sports fan can recognise but more are following fast in his acrobatic wake and Jack Neill, 18, who trains alongside him, is just one.

And the Epsom teenager with cousins in Shannon has just deferred a place at one of the most prestigious universities in the world to pursue his own Olympic dream.

“I did my A-levels in June and have just been accepted at Cambridge, I’ll be the first one of my family to go there,” Neill told The42 ahead of the prestigious Northern European Championships which take place in the University of Limerick sports arena this weekend.

“I’ve got a place to study engineering but I’m not going to start until late 2016 so I can concentrate on training. Technically I’m on a ‘gap year’ now until after the Rio 2016 Olympics,” he explained.

Neill is part of the 10-strong Irish team who will be competing against 11 other nations at this weekend’s top-class international event in UL and he clearly has as much brain-power as agility.

His A-levels were in maths, further maths and physics and, in his rare spare moments between study and elite training this year, he actually designed a gymnastics app which has already had 100,000 downloads.

“I somehow had some spare time and designed an app called ‘Stickman Highbar’,” he explained.

It’s exactly that, a little stick-man that goes around the bar and you tap on the screen to make it do different tricks.

“It’s free for the first 10 levels and then it’s 60c or whatever. It’s already had over 100,000 downloads already and it’s just four to five months old.”

So could it make you the next Alan Sugar?

“No!” he laughed shyly.

“But I have made a bit, about £2,000 so far, which I can use to fund my training. I’m already working on a few more, one for tumbling and an A-bars (asymmetrical bars) one for the girls.”

ART-ECh Montpellier/FRA - 2015: DONNELLY Tara/IRL Tara Donnelly will be in action at the Northern European Gymnastics Championships in University of Limerick this weekend. MINKUSIMAGES MINKUSIMAGES

Designing apps may be Neill’s hobby but gymnastics is his life.

He trains six hours a-day, five times a-week, at the same club (Tolworth GC) as Kieran Behan, whose performances at London 2012 garnered world-wide coverage and put Irish gymnastics on the map.

Neill is just moving out of the junior ranks for the first time and now finds himself competing against his hero for a place at next month’s World Championships in Glasgow, which is gymnastics main Olympic qualifying event for Rio 2016.

Ireland can enter three men and three women in ‘Worlds’ and this weekend’s international in UL is the final Irish trial.

Neill confesses he has no idea where his own aptitude for the sport came from.

“I’ve just one younger brother who has done all kinds of sport but isn’t really into any of them and my parents weren’t even that sporty,” he explained.

“When I was about two or three I did gymnastics just to expend some energy, I had a lot of it! I joined the club when I was five and Simon Gale, who coaches Kieran, is also my coach, so we train together.

My best and favourite event is the pommel horse. I’m still trying to add more stuff in but the most difficult move I do is called an E-Flop. It is a combination of circles that you have to do on one handle before you fall off!

On the floor his most difficult move is his dismount which is a triple-twisting backward somersault.

So has peoples’ perception of gymnastics changed since it’s been popularised by people like Behan here and Louis Smith and Sam Oldham in Britain?

“It is still quite rare but I think people now see it as a cool sport,” Neill says. “The London Olympics definitely raised its profile. I went to a state school where rugby was the main sport. I was the only one who did gymnastics but a lot more people started taking an interest in it. They wouldn’t know what the moves are but they still enjoy it.

“Hopefully all of us can make a name for ourselves individually this weekend and as an Irish team as well as we are also aiming to win team medals.”

The Finnish men will provide the toughest competition for the Irish men’s squad comprising of himself, Behan, Andy Smith, Rhys McClenaghan and Rohan Sebastian.
For the Irish women’s team of Nicole Mawhinney, Ellis O’Reilly and rising teenagers Tara Donnelly (16), Casey Bell (15) and 14-year-old Liling Martin from Ballina, Co Mayo, the Welsh women are expected to set the standard.

The 2015 Northern European Gymnastics Championships take place at the University of Limerick Sports Arena this weekend. Action on Saturday (9.15am-6.30pm) and Sunday (9.15am-3pm). Tickets are from as little as €5 with special passes for family and groups.

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