The journey from London to Rio has been one heck of a ride for Great Britain.
When London won its bid to host the 2012 Olympic games, their main pitch was to inspire a new generation of athletes and to build a legacy that would build success upon success.
And they succeeded. If you’re not seeing that legacy in the British women’s gymnastics team, I am not sure where you have been for the past four years: two silver medals with the team at 2014 and 2016 Euros, the first senior all around medalist at Euros (bronze for Ellie Downie in 2015), numerous individual medals at Euros (with Becky Downie’s uneven bars gold medals, but also the medals of Claudia Fragapane and Ellie Downie) and multiple event final qualifications at Worlds. The most coveted achievement of all was the team bronze medal at the 2015 Worlds in Glasgow.
The British came into Rio in a position they’d never been in. After winning the team bronze medal in 2015, Rio was going to be a huge learning curve not only for the gymnasts but also for the coaches as well as neither of them had come into an Olympic games as potential medal contenders.
The biggest result for Great Britain came from what seemed like a very unexpected medal for Amy Tinkler on floor, scoring a personal best of 14.933 to win the bronze.
Amy performed out of her skin to do the best floor routine I’ve personally seen her put together in competition. Over the past year we’ve seen Amy play around with different tumbles each time she competed, but seeing it all put together in one routine has paid off. Amy will go down in history as the second British women ever to win an Olympic gymnastics medal, after Beth Tweddle won Britain’s first in 2012.
The team had its down moments in qualifications, the most significant one being Ellie Downie almost putting her whole Olympics in doubt after taking a nasty fall on floor. Ellie, a world floor finalist in 2015, took a crash on her 2.5 punch front, landing on her back of her head.
Despite attempting to finish the routine, the crash left Downie too dazed and she was helped off the podium by medical staff. After what looked like the end of her all-around chances, Downie managed to compete her vault in the last rotation and helped the team qualify fourth, as well as qualifying herself into the all-around final and as a reserve to the vault final.
Another disappointment has to come from Becky Downie not qualifying to the bar final. As the current European champion on bars, it was said that Downie was Great Britian’s best chance for a gymnastics medal. But after clipping her feet on her Shang release, she incurred a 0.5 deduction. With the bar final being so tight this year, a 15.233 simply wasn’t good enough to make it into the bar final, finishing as second reserve.
Claudia Fragapane was also expected to make the floor final, but lost out on a tiebreaker for the last spot with Italy’s Erika Fasana, scoring 14.333.
Moving on to the team final, the team finished fifth just 0.009 behind Japan! For anyone who is familiar with the code of points, this is barely anything at all. The team had many mistakes; they only counted one solid beam routine while the floor rotation was not their best. However, they had killer rotations on bars and on vault, which were their highest scoring pieces in the competition.
In the all-around final, Ellie Downie was the only British gymnast to qualify where she finished thirteenth after making mistakes on the dismounts of her bar and beam routines.
Nonetheless, Rio was a good competition for the British women. They have proved to the world that the potential to carry on building their programme is still ongoing and that you can look forward to seeing more from this team on the road to Tokyo 2020.
Since Rio, Ruby Harrold has officially announced her retirement from elite gymnastics and has now gone on to Louisiana State University to compete in the NCAA. We wish Ruby the very best of luck as she embarks on a new chapter in her life.
As for the oldest member of the team, Becky Downie, there was talk about her retiring from gymnastics after Rio. However, she has posted photos and instagram videos of her training in the gym again. This could mean anything, but we can’t rule out the possibility that we could see more of Becky Downie in the next quad.
Claudia Fragapane is participating in the British TV show Strictly Come Dancing. She will be dancing together with partner AJ Pritchard and she is an early favorite to win but she is skeptical for the time being.”It’s completely different to gymnastics, I don’t know if people realise that,” … “I’m on my own, I’ve got no heels on, I’m flat-footed, if I make a mistake I cover it up. But it’s hard to do that when you’re with a partner….”I find it difficult being close to someone, looking them right in the eye! I’ll probably start laughing.” [more here]
Claudia, together with team mates Ellie Downie and Amy Tinkler are fully expected to continue on to the next cycle on the road to Tokyo 2020. With a lot of young talent on the rise in Great Britain, I predict that the next quad will be a great one for this Great British team.
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Article: Craig Tilley