The Sam Oldham Podcast

In 2008 at the Beijing Olympic Games, Justin Spring was part of the USA men's artistic gymnastics team that won the bronze medal in the team event. Justin's journey to becoming an Olympian in 2008 was anything but straight forward and in 2007 whilst performing a triple twist on the vaulting table at the US National championships, he tore his anterior cruciate ligament. After a challenging rehabilitation process he successfully qualified for the American team that went on to finish on the medal podium in China against all odds. Throughout his competitive collegiate career Justin represented the University of Illinois winning multiple National titles. Following his retirement as a professional athlete, Justin returned to Illinois to become the head coach of the men's gymnastics program where in 2012 he led the team to an NCAA National championship title. In recent years he has decided to turn his attention to the sport of Women's gymnastics and he is now the head associate coach of the Alabama college gymnastics team who are currently sit third in the season standings. Justin's gymnastics was incredibly unique and his appetite for risk is something that was encourage in him by his father Sherwood C. Spring who logged 165 hours in space as a NASA astronaut. And this is his story.

In 2023, Lukas Dauser performed a near perfect parallel bars routine at the men's artistic gymnastics World championships to win the gold medal for team Germany. Lukas took silver on his favoured event at the Tokyo Olympic Games that were held in 2021, finishing behind arguably the most dominant champion in the sport in the modern era Zou Jingyuan of team China. His first major championships success came at the European gymnastics championships in 2017 at the age of 23 where again Lukas finished on the medal podium on his specialist apparatus winning silver. Throughout his career he represented Germany at three Olympic Games, first performing alongside his heroes Fabian Hambuchen and Marcel Nguyen in Rio 2016. Lukas Dauser battled through multiple injuries during his career to become only the seventh Germany artistic gymnast to be crowned a world champion. Following the Paris 2024 Olympics, Lukas retired from the sport and has plans to inspire the next generation of aspiring German athletes in a. joint venture together with his former teammate Andreas Bretschneider. And this is his story.

In 1993, Neil Thomas won a World gymnastics championships floor exercise silver medal for Great Britain in men's artistic gymnastics in front of a home crowd in Birmingham. A year later in 1994, Neil performed one of the best routines of his professional career, defending his silver medal at the World championships held in Brisbane Australia. He had been inspired watching the Seoul Olympic Games 1988 and decided to dedicate himself to the sport, which culminated in him being selected to represent TeamGB at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games four years later. Throughout his career Neil Thomas won eight major championships medals including the 1994 Commonwealth Games All Around title. Neil competed in an era where the great Soviet Union teams dominated the sport of gymnastics but was able to garner huge amounts of respect thanks to his exceptional performances on the World stage. Neil Thomas stood alone as the sole British artistic gymnast cable of winning medals at the highest level in the 1990's and inspired many of the brilliant athletes that emerged in the early 2000's for Great Britain. And this is his story.

In 1983, Eileen Langsley became the official photographer of the international gymnastics federation and held that position for nearly two decades. Eileen has photographed fourteen Olympic Games throughout her career and specialised in artistic gymnastics, figure skating and women's sport. In 2010 she was given the award of merit by the international hall of fame for services to the sport of gymnastics. Eileen's incredible career began in the world of education as a PE teacher and her journey into the world of sports photography was driven by a passion to showcase women's sport during a time period when the profession was dominated by men. She has photographed the very best athletes in the sport of artistic gymnastics including the great Soviet Union teams of the 1980's and more recently the legendary Kohei Uchimura. And this is her story.

In 2025, Abigail Martin won the World gymnastics championships bronze medal on the floor exercise for Great Britain in the sport of women artistic gymnastics. At the age of just sixteen Abi was selected to represent Team GB at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games where she was part of the artistic gymnastics team that finished 4th in the women's team final. This followed a European team silver earlier that spring, where Abi made her international senior major championships debut finishing 7th individually in the floor exercise final. Abigail Martin's incredibly successful transition into senior gymnastics culminated in her remarkable 8th place finish at the World gymnastics championships in the all around final at just seventeen. And this is her story.