Louis Smith sticks with routine at World Championships

Highlights - Smith's mistake blows medal hopes

Louis Smith is set to persist with the pommel horse routine that cost him a medal at last year's World Championships in London.

The 21-year-old fell from the apparatus 12 months ago but is determined to put it right this time around at Rotterdam.

He told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire: "It's my next big opportunity to prove this routine is a medal-winning routine.

"As a sportsman, and someone who wants to do well, I can't run back into my shell after falling off."

In 2009 Smith opted to attempt the routine for the first time in competition, but dropped to the floor while moving between a shear-to-handstand move and a Russian rotation.

Undeterred the Peterborough gymnast dusted off the sequence once again for the Ghent World Cup at the weekend and performed it smoothly enough to pick up a silver medal.

I'd rather go there and get a World Championship gold medal than a Commonwealth gold, because I've already got a Commonwealth medal

Louis Smith

"It wasn't the best routine but I managed to get through," he said.

"I've mastered it a little bit and I'm doing it a lot more cleaner now.

"Falling off made me want to get back into the gym straight away, perfect what was wrong and iron out the creases.

"You can say some people may have been down by it and struggled, but I went on to the European Championships a few months later and managed to get the silver medal."

With the World Championships kicking off on 16 October many gymnasts have opted not to go to the Commonwealth Games earlier in the month.

Smith, and some of his Huntingdon Gym team-mates, are no different.

"In terms of the public eye the Commonwealth Games is a much bigger competition," he explained.

"But from a gymnastics point of view this World Championships is a qualifier for 2012.

"I'd rather go there and get a World Championship gold medal than a Commonwealth gold, because I've already got a Commonwealth medal."