Rio Olympics: Gymnast Kristian Thomas keeps calm as Games start

It's the start of the artistic gymnastic event at the Olympic Games in Rio, and for Thomas, a huge day in his career.

Not only is the Great Britain men's team competing in qualification today for Wednesday's all-around final, but Thomas is also trying to force his way into the individual finals of the vault and the high bar.

The 27-year-old, who was part of the team that won a famous bronze at London 2012, is now captain of Great Britain's exciting men's team.

Team silver at the World Championships last year and team silver at the European Championships this year suggest the quintet can come back with something shiny from South America.

"We've got to be looking towards a medal," said Thomas. "We definitely know that we've got that within ourselves.

"If we just concentrate on our job in the gym we know if we get that right we're going to be within the mix. It's about taking each day as it comes and trying to stay relaxed throughout the whole process."

But there's no reason why that should be the end of the story. In 2013, Thomas became the first ever British athlete to win a medal in the vault when he picked up bronze at the World Championships in Antwerp. This year, he won European silver in the horizontal bar at Bern.

"If you make a final then there's always a chance you win a medal because anything can happen in the finals of the Olympics," he admitted. "With the added pressure that comes with it there's going to be a lot of mistakes. Most of the time it's about keeping your cool and going through as clean as possible, so yeah, I know that if I make a final there's definitely options for a medal."

This whole journey started for Thomas at the age of five at Earls Gymnastics Club in Halesowen.

The former St Edmund's Catholic Academy pupil now does the majority of his training at the National Sports Centre in Lilleshall, but he hasn't neglected his roots.

"I'm based at the national centre with Andrei Popov who is one of the national coaches, but twice a week on Monday and Saturday I go back to train at Earls," he revealed.

"I still train there with Michelle Baker, who's been my coach since I was five.

"It's great to have that connection with where I first started the sport now that I'm at the complete other end of it. It's nice to go back there and train there, see some of the younger lads and hopefully give them a few tips and inspire them to see that it is possible to go on and achieve great things like competing for your country. I mix up the training but I like it that way. I get to train in these fantastic facilities, one of the best gyms in the world, and we have all our physios and doctors on site.

"Then at the start and the end of the week I can go back to my roots. That mixture keeps you grounded but also allows you to be in a place where you know you're training in the best environment possible."

For the past four years Thomas has trained six days a week and tried to rest on a Sunday. But three years ago he moved out of his parents' home and bought a house in Wimblebury with his fiancée. "Sunday was the day of rest but there are always lists to do in the house!" he said. "I'm still not far from home, just 15 or 20 minutes away from Wolverhampton. It's great to stay local, I've always enjoyed it and that's obviously where my base is with my parents, my fiancée's parents, and my gym club. I try not to travel too far; I do enough travel as it is with competitions so I try to stay at home as much as possible."

Thomas is the other side of the world at the moment, straining every sinew in qualification for the various finals he's targeted.

Is he worried about the perceived threat of the Zika virus? "Not particularly, we were out in Brazil in February," he said. "And to be honest I think the athletes' village is one of the safest places in the world because it is so restricted in movement in and out.

"There's hand sanitisers and literally everything you can imagine so from that sort of perspective I'm not really worried." The team all-round final is first up on Wednesday before the individual vault and high bar finals a few days later. Obviously I've got individual aims and aspirations as well but first and foremost is the team competition," he said.

"Individuals comes after that. It's about taking each competition as it comes and the team one is first so that's the one that we're all concentrating on."

He prefers it that way, because he enjoys working alongside his team-mates. You can become obsessed with thinking I need to make this (individual) final and it just adds unnecessary pressure," said Thomas.

Gymnastics is a physically and mentally demanding sport that requires hours of painful work in the gym, but Thomas seems relaxed. An experienced campaigner now, he knows what to expect in Rio over the next week and a half.

"Because London was my first Olympics, it was a slightly unknown," he said. "This time I'm four years older, four years more mature. I'm able to think things through a lot more, which helps me concentrate on my performance."

He'll be 31 when Tokyo 2020 rolls around, so does the Wolverhampton tumbler think Rio could be his last Olympics?

"I'll take it each year as it comes, see how the body feels, see what level I can compete at and just evaluate it from there," he said.

"I'll worry about the future later!"