This week Bill Carne met up with an extremely talented young gymnast in Paul Luger, who at ten years old is already in the Welsh and UK elite squads as reward for his and his family’s total commitment to his chosen sport . . .

There is no doubt that 10 year old Alfie Luger  is one of the most promising gymnasts to emerge from Pembrokeshire for many years and proof of this fact is that he is already a member of the Welsh and British elite squads.

To reach this standard has demanded sacrifices on the behalf of Alfie and his family because he misses some time from school every week to train at Swansea Gymnastic Club and once every eight weeks or so he spends an even longer session with the UK Elite Squad at Lilleshall, Telford, in Shropshire.

A typical training programme might be as follows:

Monday: If he's at home he goes to the Project Fitness Gym in Tenby where he does weight training under the watchful eye of Jason Ronowitz as a means of building up his physical strength.

Tuesday: About seven hours training on the whole range of activities.

Wednesday: three hours after school, with natural breaks for food and rest.

Thursday: A shorter session of three hours, but with an increase in intensity.

Friday:  Five hours of focussed training with the emphasis on particular skill sets.

Saturday: Four hours of more effort to build his skill levels.

Sunday: Amazingly, Alfie takes a well-deserved rest!

"In each of these sessions we do lots of conditioning work," Alfie told us, “plus stretching work to build on our suppleness, rope climbs for upper body strength, ring work for the same aim - and then lots of work on the six different disciplines that make up my sport.

"These six different sections are made up of parallel bars, floor, vault, high bars, rings and pommel horse - and each one has its own special difficulties and needs real concentration and practise over and over again to overcome them."

For example, when Alfie started out on the parallel bars he had to train on a piece of wooden equipment shaped like a mushroom, and at the outset he could only manage a quarter turn and then a half turn - and after six years of focus he can now complete over a hundred turns and is able to show high skill levels on the pommel horse.

"It's the same story on the vault," says his dad Paul, "and we have lovely video footage that shows him taking on a difficult new vault and it is easy to see the look of joy when he finally landed on his feet after so many failed attempts where he has landed on his knees, his back or even on his face!"

Like most sports people engaged in events like horse riding, climbing or gymnastics the coaches' philosophy is the same and it is important to face the difficulty immediately - and that is especially so on the high bars in gymnastics.

There is a natural wear and tear for young, soft hands that mean blisters or mini cuts to the hands - and the coaches' response is always the same when they say,

"Just put some chalk dust on it and you'll be ok," as the means of supporting the toughening up attitude so vital to success!

But it is fair to say that Alfie had to learn this from an early age because when he was four he was full of beans and so mum Leanne and Paul took him to the Elements Gym Club run by Jadie Edwards and she spotted his raw potential and recommended he went to Swansea Gymnastics Club.

This was after he had gone to Jadie the first time and was so overawed that there were a few tears and there were a couple of occasions in both clubs where this happened but Alfie and Co persevered and pretty soon he was enjoying himself.

It wasn't too long before Alfie entered his first Welsh Championship for his age group against others from areas like Neath, Cardiff, The Valleys and Bridgend and won it!

Since then Alfie has competed for four years and has won every time and in November 2017 he was old enough to compete in the British Championships, representing Wales in the elite team and individual championships at the East Midlands Gymnasium in Birmingham.

The family were thrilled that Alfie helped Wales into second spot against the best gymnasts from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland - and even more delighted that Alfie did well in all six individual components to earn the silver medal in the individual competition to qualify for entry into the elite six-man squad for the UK.

It is good to report that Leanne and Paul were there as reward for their total support to Alfie's involvement and travel needs, with younger sister Aimee (7) totally delighted as well as she enjoys dance and some gymnastics too!

Someone else who has been an inspiration to Alfie is Harry Owen, the top gymnast to emerge from Pembrokeshire and now working on tour with Cirque de Soleil - and who has given Alfie every help and encouragement along the way.

All the training is certainly paying off because Alfie is now a confident young man on all the six disciplines and if you ask him which is his favourite or the one he finds hardest it depends on progress made over recent weeks in all of them.

All of Alfie's efforts saw further recognition at the start of 2018 when he was nominated for and won the award for ''Most Promising West Wales Gymnast' which was presented to him by former Olympic gymnast Andrew Morris.

"It was a great honour," said Alfie, "and it was fantastic to receive it from Andrew as a top person in our sport."

Ask him about ambitions and Alfie would say that he wants to carry on working hard in his chosen sport and at his young age there is no doubt that he has enormous potential and could one day appear in the Commonwealth Games for Wales or the Olympic Games for the UK..

He is a level-headed young man, however, and knows they are some way off - but he thoroughly deserves any success that comes his way and we wish Alfie Luger good luck in continuing to fly the Pembrokeshire Flag with style!