EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Olympic Gymnast Jonathan Horton On The London Games

Jonathan Horton already won a silver medal at 2008’s Beijing game for the horizontal bar and this time around in London, Horton has his eye on the gold. At 26, Horton is something of a veteran of the sport, having already won numerous medals in a variety of events. Nonetheless, he has yet to win Olympic gold. Horton hopes to change that this year, hoping his experience from Beijing will pay dividends in London. “This time I just know what to expect at the Olympics… I mean, I had watched the games on TV before, but there is nothing that can prepare you for actually going through it and being in the mix of everything,” Horton says in our exclusive interview. Horton, who is a Texas native, is often praised for his daringness in competitions, and apparently Horton developed this quality in his youth. “I mean, the main reason I got into gymnastics is just because I was kind of a crazy kid. I’d even go as far as saying I was kind of psychotic. I did some crazy stuff that made my parents put me in it when I was four years old like I rode a garage door to the ceiling one time, I climbed a pole in the middle of a Target, I used to jump off the roof when my parents weren’t watching.”