OKEHAMPTON Flyers gymnast Mason Parker-Groves has been selected to represent Great Britain at the Double Mini Trampoline (DMT) World Championships in Nanjing, China, this November! This is the highest-level event a junior gymnast can qualify for and compete in.

Mason has also been selected to represent England in both trampolining and DMT at the Loule Cup in Portugal in October. This is his first Great Britain selection for DMT and his first trampoline national squad selection.

Mason has worked incredibly hard to achieve his selections for the World Championships and the Loule Cup. He started with Okehampton Flyers while competing the novice club 3 grade for trampolining and was a beginner in DMT.

After training several days per week, he entered British Gymnastics nationals at 10 years old, and with an immense amount of hard work and commitment, has climbed from the lower national rankings to the top of his age group.

This year he progressed to achieving a British Gymnastics FIG national gold medal, a Home Nations gold medal as well as other national podium places in DMT. He also achieved his first ever FIG national bronze medal in trampolining as well as three silver national English medals for the first time in trampolining.

To qualify for the World Championships, gymnasts have to attend and compete in designated world's selection events. Mason was the only British DMT gymnast in his age group to hit the difficult World Championship qualification score at a selection event this year, achieving 0.8 points above it. This means he is now number one in the Great Britain 13-14 boys’ DMT team. He also progressed to hitting the difficult secondary world score in trampolining for the first time at the English Championships in July.

Mason's coach, Vicki Pritchard, said: "Mason is extremely committed. Qualifying not only for the Great Britain team, but also for a national squad in a second discipline, is a huge achievement.

“He has been working at his execution, time of flight, HD and landings for the upcoming internationals, and has been continuing to increase his difficulty, with complex double double passes for DMT and seven double somersaults including multiple twisting doubles in his trampoline routine.

"Training and competing at this level takes a huge amount of dedication and many personal sacrifices. It also takes a lot of commitment from gymnasts' families.

"Mason's success is inspiring to our local community. It shows our current and future gymnasts that, with hard work and perseverance, they could also achieve high level goals."

All Great Britain and England places are self-funded, with all costs including travel, accommodation, GB and England kit, training camp fees and other related costs falling to families. To represent Great Britain and England at these two internationals and maintain Mason's squad places, it will cost his family around £5,000. Without external financial support, Mason won’t be able to compete at the World Championships or the Loule Cup.

Okehampton Flyers are running a GoFundMe campaign to help raise funds so that Mason can compete at the World Championships and Loule. Mason and his family would be incredibly grateful to anyone who can make a donation or would like to sponsor him. Every single penny raised goes directly towards Mason's competition expenses.