Cork native Daniel Fox 'surprised' at call up to Gymnastics World Cup

CORK gymnast Daniel Fox is off to the IG Artistic Gymnastics World Cup. 

He hopes a positive performance in Croatia will bode well ahead of the European Championships, and it's a huge honour for the Grange native, who will be competing in three events at the showpiece event.

The 28-year-old will start his program on the rings, and he will finish up with displays on the parallel and horizontal bars. This is the realisation of huge work by Fox and he cannot wait to get started in the tournament in Osijek this week.

“I was a bit surprised to be completely honest – it wasn’t something I was fully prepared to do in the build-up to the Europeans,” he talked about getting called up for the World Cup.

“I knew I wanted to get a competition done pre-European Champions because the Europeans is the final qualification for the Olympics and the European Championships is a huge competition.

“When the World Cup was offered to me as a build-up competition, I jumped at the opportunity. 

A World Challenge Cup is always a fantastic competition and I’m really excited. There’s some new routines that I wanted to try.

“It was pure excitement when they said I’m going to this World Cup and it is a stepping stone to the European Championships a few weeks later." 

Fox will travel to Croatia with a point to prove over his last experience of competing in the World Cup.

“I’ve done some World Challenge Cups before and the last one I did was in Paris – it was a huge World Cup and really well attended and I had a really bad day,” he looked back.

“I picked up an injury out there and I had to get surgery on my shoulder. That is the last World Cup for me. Psychologically for me, this is my debut and I’m back into the World Cup circuit after the injury. I suppose that is why I was so excited for it when I got the call for it." 

To set the record straight, and make sure he competes to the best of his ability, Fox has pushed himself like never before with a tailor-made training program.

“I’m based up in Dublin at the moment – I’m up on the Irish Sports Centre which is an absolutely brilliant facility,” he said.

I pretty much train from Monday to Saturday. Monday would be a more basic day but every day I am in the gym for three to five hours.

“Monday would be basic enough. I try and get my rehab done and the basics on each apparatus, dismounts and the end parts of the routines. Just making sure my routine is good and maybe I get on the trampoline.

“Tuesday is a heavier day. I try to do more of my full routines with full elements in them. I would be doing four or five apparatuses on the Tuesday out of the six. Now sometimes I would do all six, but I try to do four or five.

“Wednesday is a little bit of a mix. Wednesday is sorting out your problems from Tuesday. Tuesday is your heavy day of the week and you’re correcting any problems that would have gone on, like if you had a fall in one of your routines. 

"You would look at it and practise it on the Wednesday. It is still heavy training, about five hours and that would take you to the break in your week."