“To be honest, I didn’t think at the age of 27 I’d still be wearing a leotard.”
We are now in the closing stages of the career that revolutionised British gymnastics. In two months’ time, the Beth Tweddle era will be over.
Born in South Africa but a proud product of Liverpool, Tweddle entered her first major world event in 2001, aged 16.
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"I want to go skydiving, or skiing or wingwalking, and not wake up in the middle of the night to check an injury"
Beth Tweddle
By 2002, she was a European medallist and Commonwealth champion.
In 2003 came a first world medal, and 2006 saw her crowned European and world champion on the uneven bars.
The idol to a generation or more of young female gymnasts will end her career with three world titles to her name – two on the bars and one in the floor event, the latter won inside London’s O2 Arena in 2009.
Now she sits inside the same arena, which will shortly become the home of London 2012′s Olympic gymnastics, and ruminates on the subject of leotards.
Thousands bearing her name and signature are sold each year, but few are worn by women in their mid-to-late 20s.
“They’re not the most comfortable piece of clothing,” she confesses. “This time, it was nice to pack for two days and not have to put a leotard in the bag.”
While there are gymnasts far older than Tweddle still competing internationally – Oksana Chusovitina of Germany, for example, is 36 – it is rare to get much beyond 20 in the sport.
Tweddle’s longevity and success are remarkable, all the more so as the woman whose achievements helped to haul Britain’s gymnasts forward into a new era.
Her world titles reinvigorated the sport, convinced judges that British performances mattered, persuaded funding bodies and sponsors to come on board, and showed younger gymnasts you could be British and succeed.
“I’ll think more about that when I retire, and I can look back over what I’ve achieved,” she says. “For now, I’m only as good as my next result.”
With one result left to get, Tweddle is set to be named as the leader of Britain’s five-strong women’s gymnastics team for her home Olympics next week, coming through a lengthy battle against her own body to make it this far.
Tweddle’s medals
World titles:
2006 (bars), 2009 (floor), 2010 (bars)
European titles:
2006 (bars), 2009 (bars and floor), 2010 (bars and floor), 2011 (bars)
Commonwealth titles:
2002 (bars)
She missed this year’s European Championships, in May, having had keyhole surgery on a knee problem, and has been sleeping with a machine strapped around her knee to keep it iced through the night (bought with the help of millionaire philanthropist Barrie Wells, who has given a number of Team GB athletes financial aid).
“It runs from above my knee to halfway down my shin and ices and compresses, which is vital as there is not the time during a day’s training,” she wrote in her
Metro column
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