Hugh Smith, a returned missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is on the five-man gymnastics team competing for Canada in the Pan American Games in Toronto, which run July 10-26. The artistic gymnastic competition starts July 11.
At 31 years old, he is one of the oldest members of the Canada's National Team.
Smith’s choice to serve a Mormon mission came after much deliberation. Any break in training can have serious consequences, and at 19, he wasn’t sure if he could put his gymnastics dreams on the back burner.
“Gymnastics is one of those sports that you take two days off and it makes a difference,” Smith said. “Your body is weaker or less flexible or you’re just out of it.”
He thought about finishing his gymnastics career first and then serving at age 25 or 26. He said he was motivated to put his mission papers in at the age of 19 by the words in Matthew 6:33: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Smith headed to the Mexico City North Mission where he said he became so involved with preaching the gospel that he completely stopped training for two years. He said he hardly missed gymnastics.
“I felt like I was going to miss it a lot, but amazingly enough, I didn’t and it was 100 percent focus on serving the Lord and doing my mission,” he said.
It took 10 months of intense training after he returned to Canada to get back into competitive form. His coach wasn’t sure it would be possible to recover the form Smith lost on the mission, but Smith was willing to work hard. He would run an hour to the gym, train there for four hours and then run back home.
Now, 10 years later, Smith is still competing. He said God has blessed him. Even while competing well past the age that most gymnasts retire, Smith has never had a serious injury.
“I think that taking those two years completely off, in many ways it kind of preserved my body and helped me to have a prolonged career,” he said. “The Lord has definitely blessed me to be able to continue to do what I love to do.”
In 2014, he won the senior national all-around title at age 29, and this summer will mark his third Pan American Games. The Pan American Games is one of the largest international multi-sport competitions in the world, according to the games’ website. This year they are in Toronto, so Canada is sending its best gymnasts.
“Being able to compete for Canada in your home country where everyone’s watching, that is really special in itself,” Smith said.
After the Pan American Games, Smith and the rest of the national Canadian gymnastics team members will shift their focus to qualifying for the 2016 Olympic Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, starting with the World Gymnastic Championships in October. Smith has long had his eye on going to the Olympics.
“I’m pretty happy with everything that I’ve done in my career as an athlete in the sport with all the competitions and everything,” he said. “I would say that I’m happy with that, but going to the Olympics would kind of put the cherry on top and kind of end my career in a positive way.”
Smith said he is grateful for his gymnastics success and he continued to give credit to his two years in Mexico.
“I just want to let the youth of the church know that, really, putting the Lord first is the best decision that they can make,” he said. “He will help you with any other things you want to do and accomplish.”
Another LDS returned missionary has already joined Smith on the national team. Jackson Payne returned to the team from the Korea Seoul South Mission in June 2014.
"We always joke around that our team religion is, by majority, Mormon," said Smith.
Email: jjohnson@deseretnews.com