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I recognise the logo on his vest there. South Essex Gymnastics Club. Max Whitlock (Olympic gold medalist) trains at their facility. If Archie was on their books and commuting to their gym, it shows they were serious about it.
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Catching up on the last 20 pages of this thread. This facility is one of the only gymnastics-dedicated gyms in Essex. IIRC if you see an Olympian on the books, this isn’t where their primary coach resides, but is more of the closest convenient facility for maintenance practice. They also get priority in space/equipment use.
Many of the childrens classes are medium to large groups, and the coaches are people who once upon a time were in that class and now coach as a way to pay for their own gym time. The youngest I knew of was 14-16 and assistant coach. The gym itself isn’t necessarily an indication of prospects, anyone can join if you pay- theres even daytime classes for local SEN schools.
There’s two main facilities, one where many begin classes, and another where you train children who are on a team or have been talent spotted from the initial gym and are pegged to be team material soon.
Both gyms have large viewing windows for parents to watch training sessions, and the mothers do compete via their children. I.e. if one child does something impressive, they like to check who’s kid it is. Coaches can be called in from another building to see this child specifically, which creates animosity between the other kids whose session has been effectively paused to show a coach this child.
Watching kids for mental health concerns is a bit lax here. The classes are age-mixed and there can be issues where a child who is 15-16 is in the same group as a child aged 10-12. This exposes younger kids to topics of discussion like weight. There’s also little done about older kids mentioning things about younger kids starting puberty (comments like they haven’t shaved their armpits yet and that’s gross, or they haven’t figured out how much deodorant is too little or too much yet, or their gym clothes are from ebay not the gym shop on site, are made among older kids in conversation with coaches they view as friends, while the younger child is in ear shot). I know at least three kids who were self harming during their time there (ages 10, 13 and 15 at the time) and one selling homework to other kids (aged 12), not necessarily due to the gym, but the atmosphere of the sport likely doesn’t help.
Children with Olympic level prospects can and do train here, but not as their primary facility unless parental support or financial support is lacking.
I cannot see validity to the briefly floated nonce theory, there’s a lot of transparency between coaches and parents and parents are encouraged to be present during practice as often as they can be and there is never a singular coach responsible for a singular child alone in a room without other coaches, athletes, guardians or teachers (SEN carers) present or in eye-shot.
