Pichler shows ticker to land gym gold

GOLD Coast Gymnastics Club member Thomas Pichler last night capped his comeback from a knee reconstruction to earn Commonwealth Games gold in the team event.

Pichler, 23, who tutors up-and-coming kids at the Miami-based club, linked with Josh Jefferis, Sam Offord, Prasanth Sellathurai and Luke Wiwatows at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium to compete his personal resurrection.

The Australians (259.05) upset gold medal favourites England (256.75) by scoring the most individual points on all six apparatus.

Pichler, born with a hole in his heart and an unrelenting resilience, also qualified for the blue-riband all-round final.

Down by 0.65 points, Jefferis, Offord, Pichler, Prasanth Sellathurai and  Wiwatowsk - a late replacement for injured veteran  Phil Rizzo - produced the best team result of the night on the rings to avenge the pain of a narrow team loss to Candida in Melbourne four years ago.

Head trainer at Gold Coast Gymnastics, Brett Wood, was stunned by Pichler's performance.

"In the light of what he has been through physically, it's little short of phenomenal," he said of the gymnast whose family migrated to Australia from Austria when he was five.

"He's got a spirit to match his natural ability,"

Wood believes Pichler will take renewed confidence in to tomorrow's one-man routine, labelling him a `special person' for the way he has beaten adversity.

David Lewis, Gold Coast Bulletin, 05/10/2010