A TALENTED hockey star says he can’t wait to get going after being selected to represent his country at the Australian Youth Olympic Festival.

Harry Gibson is one of 120 athletes heading to Sydney as part of Team GB when the competition gets underway on January 16.

The 19-year-old, of Church-inford, has been selected as the hockey team’s goalkeeper after discovering his skill for the game almost by chance.

He said: “I got into hockey when I went to secondary school. I’d always played football and cricket, but started playing during PE.

“One of my friends played at a local club, too, so I just progressed through that.”

Harry’s progress was rapid as he was named ‘keeper of the tournament at the Four Nations Tournament in Seville, Spain, when he was 16.

He has also played for Eng-land under-16s and under-18s, and is a member of the under-21 squad.

“Spain was my first Eng-land tournament, which was great, but the scale of this one is huge,” said Harry, who studies banking and finance at Loughborough University.

“We don’t really know how we’ll do over there – the Aus-tralians are very good, but we don’t know a lot about them, so it’ll be tough.

“We had a training camp this week and we were playing well, so we’ll see what happens.”

The festival will run until January 20 and you can follow Harry’s progress Down Under via his Twitter acc-ount – @HarryJayGibson