Gymnast Melanie's Olympic dream is born from mum's York background.

Teenager Melanie Tham is on course to be selected for the Canadian gymnastic team for the next Olympic Games - and the lithe youngster has her York-born mum Lynne to thank for her golden ambition.

Lynne first took up gymnastics as a sport in her younger years in her native York. Her passion for the sport did not end when she emigrated to Canada almost two decades ago.

Since then, however, it has been redoubled by the daring expertise of her 13-year-old daughter Melanie, who is rated number five in Canada, and whose vaulting ambition is to be in the national squad for the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

On a visit to York for the christening of three-month-old cousin Alfie Atkinson, the teenager has steadfastly continued her strict training programme in York this past fortnight.

Ironically, she has embarked on her rigorous routine in the same St John's College gym in Heworth Green used by York Gymnastics Club, which her mother joined back in the 1970s.

Lynne and Melanie have been visiting Lynne's brother Glenn and his wife Donna, who live just off Hull Road.

Lynne said: "It was amazing really that the guy letting her train there (St John's College gym) was Stan Wild, who used to be my coach in York all those years ago.

"However, I was nowhere near the standard that Melanie has reached."

Since first taking to the sport when she was just three years old, Melanie's dedication to her sport back in her native Toronto is total.

At present she trains five hours a day, five days a week. Such diligence steered her to fifth place in the individual junior Canadian finals last year.

This year an ankle injury confined her involvement in the championships to the discipline of the uneven bars. Her current speciality is the floor exercise.

But she is rated as one of the leading prospects in the entire Canadian junior division, where, if her progress continues at the same pace, she can expect to stake a claim for the next Olympics.

Melanie is trained by two Russian coaches, a former Red Army soldier Alex Bard and compatriot Svetlana Degteva, at the prestigious Gymnastics Mississauga club.

Aware of the family visit to York, she was urged by her coaches to maintain her training schedule in England.

She told the Evening Press before today's return home to Canada: "I have enjoyed my time with the York Gym Club, where I've been training each Wednesday and Friday. It's a good club and the facilities are great.

"My ambition is to get to the next Olympics, but I know I still have a lot of hard work to do."

Updated: 12:09 Saturday, September 08, 2001