Local Olympian/American Ninja Warrior Competes Monday Night

2004 Olympic Gymnastics All Around Gold medalist Paul Hamm, has continued to achieve monumental success in his career as a boys gymnastics coach at Premier Gymnastics Academy in Downers Grove along with many other Olympic size accomplishments in his personal life.

Hamm is one part TV’s Ninja Warrior, one part gymnastics coach, and soon to be one part Olympic Hall of Famer.

In May, Hamm spearheaded the Premier Gymnastics boy’s team to a 6th place finish at the Junior Olympics National Championships in Battle Creek Michigan. Team members Danny Graham won first place All Around and Dominic Tommasone took second place All Around in their respective divisions. In the past three years as coach for Premier Gymnastics Paul has had champions in the Junior Olympic Nationals each year.

This month in Philadelphia Paul shot an episode of NBC TV’s American Ninja Warrior which will June 27th @ 8pm. Since the episode has not aired yet Paul was unable to comment on his performance. About 10 years ago Hamm had competed and won on the original Japanese version of Ninja Warrior. Hamm said, “Honestly, I got more recognized for appearing on the original Japanese version of Ninja Warrior than winning an Olympic Gold Medal.”

This July, Paul will be inducted into the USAG Hall of Fame at the Women’s Olympic Trials in San Jose. Not only is Hamm honored for this induction but he is very excited because at this event all living gymnastics Olympians are invited to attend.

USAG Gymnastics calls Hamm regularly in as a guest clinician to come in and work with current top elite national gymnasts as a coaching specialist.

Every summer Paul gets out to different gymnastics camps to train aspiring gymnasts. This year he will be spending a week at Camp Woodward in Pennsylvania which is a combination of skateboarding, gymnastics, cheerleading, BMX biking. Paul said, “I will work with the kids, try to get them inspired, coach them, help spot them and work with different coaches to share ideas and offer clinics to the younger coaches coming up in the sport of gymnastics.” Flip Fest is another camp Hamm will be attending which is strictly a gymnastics camp owned by two Olympic friends of Paul - John Roethlisberger and John Mcready.

This year Hamm’s boys teams were State Champions and among the top 5 in the country.

Paul works directly with approximately 40 students per season at Premier. When asked if Hamm sees any future Olympians he responded, “You never know, but you can see that certain spark, that fire, that might be able to get them all the way to the Olympic Games. We’ve always seen talent here at Premier, we have four students that have headed out to college with scholarships – Alex Diab (University of Illinois), Baily Perez (Stanford), Danny Graham (University of Illinois), and Rex Scott (West Point)). We have a really strong program here and it shows with the placing’s we’ve had at state and national meets.”

Hamm’s gymnastics training philosophy motivates his students with positive reinforcement and encourages them to have fun with games and prizes.

This November, the third annual Paul Hamm Boys Gymnastics Invitational will be held in honor of Paul at Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles.