James Hall, third from left, and Courtney Tulloch, second left, celebrate their gold medals in Australia. Picture: Gymnastics Australia

by Craig Tucker

Gymnast James Hall described his double gold medal success at the Australian Youth Olympic Festival as the “experience of my life”.

Hall, 17, travelled to Australia in the shadow of high-profile Pegasus team-mate Courtney Tulloch but upstaged his friend and training partner.

They won two gold medals each but Oakwood Park sixth-former Hall – helped by a silver on pommel horse and bronze on vault – finished fifth overall with Tulloch in sixth.

Hall said: “The attention was on Courtney a little bit more because he won two gold medals at the European Championships and is better known than me. It was incredible, the best experience of my life.”

Hall helped Great Britain win team gold before surprising himself by winning the floor event.

He said: “Floor didn’t go well for me in the team event so we changed the routine and I bumped my score up by a mark. I was second up and when I saw my score of 14.3, my jaw dropped."

Hall and Tulloch’s next big event is the English Championships in three weeks’ time.

Hall said: “We’ll be training hard. We are competitive but we still cheer each other and push each other on. We try to get better and better with every training session.”