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Trampoline ace Ben could hit the heights
A talented young athlete has his sights set on the Olympics – only months after taking up his sport.
At the age of just nine, Ben Cowan has beaten stiff competition to win a prize in the national schools trampolining finals.
Ben, a pupil at Biddick Primary School, took up the sport as a hobby a year ago, but is already showing potential to be a contender for the Olympics 2016.
Mum Melanie said that although Ben took second prize and was disappointed at missing out on first place by just two marks, she was thrilled at how well he had done, especially in such a short time.
The mum-of-three said: "It was amazing for him to come second in the under-11s when he has never taken part in anything like this before."
Melanie, 34, of Fountains Close, Biddick, who also has two other sons, Anthony, 13, and Tommy, eight said she hadn't realised how much talent Ben had.
Melanie and her husband Neil, 44, who runs his own printing company, were stunned when their son's coach at the Apollo Trampolining Club, which trains at Washington Leisure Centre, started talking about potential Olympic standard.
She said: "Throughout school, staff had always said he was really good at gymnastics, but I didn't think that much about it.
"Then he found out a woman who lives nearby was involved with a trampoline club at the Washington Galleries and he asked if he could go along and see what it was like.
"It just started out as something for him to do, a nice hobby, then all of a sudden people were telling me how good he was."
She added: "It is just amazing. I don't know where he gets the talent from – it's certainly not me or his dad. But it is something that just seems to come so naturally to him."
Ben loves his sport so much that he goes to training sessions three times a week.
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Weather for Sunderland
Saturday 04 February 2012
Today
Light sleet showers
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