Junior career Oldham left
Rushcliffe School and moved to
Huntingdon at the age of 14 to train with the
2008 Summer Olympics-bound gymnasts, where he lodged with the family of fellow gymnast, Cameron MacKenzie. His other training partners included eventual
pommel horse bronze medallist Louis Smith. Oldham was named
BBC East Midlands' Junior Sports Personality of the Year in 2009 for his performances in Tampere and for sweeping all seven golds available at the English national championships. At the
2010 European Gymnastics Championships in Birmingham, England, Oldham won three gold medals, becoming European junior champion in the team all-around, the horizontal bar, and the individual all-around. By winning the individual all-around, Oldham secured qualification to
represent Great Britain at the
2010 Summer Youth Olympics in Singapore. In Singapore, Oldham
qualified second overall for the
all-around competition and made the finals in four other events – the
floor,
pommel horse,
parallel bars, and
horizontal bar. Oldham was in the silver medal position in the all-around final when he suffered a fall from the horizontal bar, his final apparatus, thus finishing fifth. However, he recovered from the setback to win silver in the pommel horse event, missing out on gold by 0.25 points. on the same apparatus in which he had suffered his fall during the all-around competition. Despite going first out of the eight finalists, Oldham's score of 14.375 points held out throughout and was enough for gold. After the Games, Oldham's coach Paul Hall described Oldham as having a chance of making the British team for the
2012 Summer Olympics in London, while
Smith called Oldham is an "amazing talent" and British head gymnastics coach Andre Popov predicted Oldham will "absolutely" become Olympic champion. Oldham considered trying for the
2010 Commonwealth Games team. For his performances in 2010, Oldham was shortlisted for the
BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year Award, and for Junior Sportsperson of the Year Award at the Nottinghamshire Sports Awards, the latter of which he won.
Senior career Oldham was named as Great Britain's reserve gymnast to participate at the
2010 senior world championships in
Rotterdam. He was the youngest member of the British men's team. The British team qualified for the final and finished seventh in the team all-around, although Oldham did not ultimately take part in the competition. In 2011, Oldham was included along with
Samuel Hunter,
Daniel Purvis,
Theo Seager,
Louis Smith and
Kristian Thomas in the British squad travelling to Berlin, Germany for the
2011 European Artistic Gymnastics Championships from 6 to 10 April, again as the youngest member of the delegation representing Great Britain. Oldham qualified as the second reserve for the parallel bars final and in fourth place for the final on the horizontal bar. He came fourth in the horizontal bar final, which was his first major senior final. Oldham was to have been part of the British squad at the
London Prepares series gymnastics Olympic qualifier in January 2012, but missed out after breaking his collarbone before the
2011 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in October 2011, and further injuring himself during that competition. Without Oldham, the British team secured qualification to the
gymnastics events at the
2012 Summer Olympics. Despite his injury setback, Oldham ended the first year of his senior career by winning all-around silver at the British national championships, which doubled as the final selection trial for the Olympic Games. Oldham attributed his performance, which he said was "better than I could ever have hoped for" and was good enough to see him named to the British squad for the Olympics over
Dan Keatings, to the trials being the final chance to impress the Olympic selectors after his injury layoff. At 19, Oldham was the youngest member to be named to the British team for
gymnastics at the 2012 Summer Olympics, which won a bronze medal in the
men's team all-around final at the
North Greenwich Arena on 30 July. On 19–25 May 2014, at the
2014 European Championships in Sofia. Oldham along with his teammates (
Daniel Keatings,
Daniel Purvis,
Max Whitlock,
Kristian Thomas) won Team Great Britain the silver medal behind Russia with a total score of 262.087 points. In event finals, Oldham won the silver medal in high bar (14.866) behind 2012 Olympic champion
Epke Zonderland. Oldham suffered from ankle ligament damage at the Commonwealth Games in July 2014, but returned to competition nine months later. Although he was third overall in the all-around and won the floor exercise in the final trial for the Olympics, he did not make the squad for the
2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Following the 2021 Men’s Artistic British Championships, where he won a gold medal on the Horizontal Bar with a score of 13.900, Oldham announced his official retirement from elite gymnastics on 14 September 2021. ==References==