I am Daniel Schwed, 16 years old, I am from Berlin.
And I represent Germany
at the Youth Olympic Games in Gymnastics.
At age 4, my parents brought me to Gymnastics...
..and I had fun instantly.
(DANIEL IS ONE OF THE WORLD'S TOP YOUNG ARTISTIC GYMNASTS)
(HEROES OF THE FUTURE)
At two he was already very active and flexible...
..and when he turned four
we signed him up in a gymnastics club.
And he was trying to do splits by himself, for example.
He has a strong self-propulsion
regarding his body and exercise.
I was a very active kid and started being agile early on.
It was not very difficult for me at the beginning.
(GRÜNHEIDE, GERMANY
(NATIONAL OLYMPIC & PARALYMPIC TRAINING CENTRE)
I think Daniel is someone
who excels especially on the apparatus:
on the pommel horse, on the bars and on parallel bars,
and that's why he's a very elegant gymnast.
My favourite apparatus is the pommel horse.
It's where I can do more difficult elements.
Now I try to include them in the routine
and it's where I have the most fun.
Well, Daniel is very ambitious
and always wants more.
He has fixed aims he doesn't lose sight of.
He tries to do everything that is in his power
to reach his goals.
I think he has a good quality
that has nothing to do with gymnastics necessarily.
He knows how to concentrate for competitions.
That means that he delivers
a top performance during competition,
and that's something very special.
And now the idea of not achieving his goals
doesn't even come into question.
He must simply accomplish everything.
That, I'd say, is his own inner attitude.
The biggest problem is, I think,
that I am not always happy with myself.
Sometimes he can be too firm in his ideas.
But he's only sixteen.
He's still got time to reach the senior category.
And he will have that time to develop his physical condition.
He has around 27 training hours weekly.
I trained most of the time with Holger Behrendt,
former Olympic champion in 1988.
I spent more time with him than with my parents at home.
I trained six hours a day.
He is a person you have to listen to
and he is very important.
Now I train with Sascha Münker, Mr Münker.
I have trained with him for the last events,
like the German Championships
or the qualification for the YOG.
It's admirable that a child - he's still a child -
doesn't say:
"I want some time off, I want to be a teenager."
And Daniel's parents have always supported him 100%.
Without parents' support this couldn't work at all.
No, we've always tried to support him.
We had a lot of sports equipment at home.
The horizontal bar was hanging from the wall.
So we encouraged it.
My family really does give everything for me.
I am away many times.
They don't get to do everything they'd like because of me.
I am very thankful.
Yes, he has a hero, and that is Kohei Uchimura.
What he's achieved is unbelievable.
That is of course very hard to beat
but it's a good example to follow.
No question. If Uchimura is his hero, my son is my hero.
And when we watch him compete
all these emotions and feelings come up.
(HIS TIME IS NOW)