Gymnastics star Cox: 'It's the most typical Cork thing to say ever, but I hate leaving Cork'
Daniel Fox during the Gymnastics Ireland content gathering day at the Sport Ireland National Gymnastics Training Centre in Dublin. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
Daniel Fox regards himself as your standard citizen of the Rebel county.
"It's the most typical Cork thing to say ever, but I hate leaving Cork," he laughed. "I love training at home!"
Nevertheless, this week the Douglas man is happy to swap home for the European stage as Ireland's senior men's gymnastics team strives for success in Croatia.
The 30-year-old is the oldest member of the set-up that he believes is the strongest the country has ever sent to a major competition.
Fox is joined by Olympic champion Rhys McClenaghan, Eamon Montgomery, James Hickey, Adam Steele and Oisin O’Connell for the European Championships begin at the Zagreb Arena on Wednesday.
This will be his sixth Europeans. Fox missed the last championship because of niggling injuries, but he had also walked away from competitive gymnastics in 2019 to concentrate on his studies after injuries took their toll.
However, the Covid pandemic reignited his passion and he returned in time for the 2022 renewal in Munich.
He came home to Cork from England, where he had been working as a schoolteacher and gymnastics coach, and rebuilt himself to elite level.
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Now he combines his training with a full-time role as a sports development officer with Cork City Council.
"If they read this in the council, thanks very much, they're brilliant," laughed Fox, in his second year in the role.
"It's a class job, you get to work with brilliant groups, we try to bring sport to a lot of communities and get young people involved in local clubs and youth groups.
"A bit of school work is involved. Depending on what we're doing, we could be advertising through schools, running camps through the city council, or working with Munster Rugby and getting young coaches into their programme.
"It's very varied, but it's great craic, and it means I can come up to the National Gymnastics Centre for the weekend training camps, that's no problem."
That's despite the aversion to leaving his home county. After all, Fox says, competing for Ireland is everything to him.
"There’s no better feeling," he admitted. “I thrive in a team. I absolutely love it. It would probably suit me to be on the side of a pitch, to be honest, screaming for the lads. I just love to see them out there doing well."
Fox has watched Irish gymnastics transform during his career, with McClenaghan leading the charge.
McClenaghan has become one of the biggest names in world gymnastics, while Montgomery and Hickey have also reached World Cup podiums this year.
“The momentum is brilliant," Fox enthused. "It’s massive for the sport that Rhys has done it. It’s incredible.
“It’s nice to see James, Oisin and the full junior team here as well. They’re all young, they’ve all got full careers ahead of them.”
That depth is something Fox believes separates the current generation from the team he joined a decade ago. “We had a team, but it definitely didn’t have the depth that we have now," he explained.
“If you look at the big countries in Europe, they don’t have six good guys, they have 12. They can slide people in and out. That’s where success is built, really, so it’s great to see.”
Fox has been in consistently good form and won national titles on rings and parallel bars early in the summer.
He is expected to do the all-around this week and compete in all six elements.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m in the top eight or in the top 15, if I hit the routine the way I’ve been doing in training, I wouldn’t ask for more than that," he stressed.
“You go in with a game plan, you know how many vaults you’re having, how many dismounts you need to stick, how long you’re holding every position.
“So it’s almost like a bit of meditating. You go in with an absolute goal, and it’s not even the goal of a medal or a score, it’s like these goals have to count. I got a little bit better at that in the last couple of years and I really enjoy it.”
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