Gymmin' Miel!

Adjusting to life outside the gym after what will almost certainly be her last major competition is going to be the hardest part for Tweddle, who has already deferred a physiotherapy degree until next year so she can spend time with family and friends after the Olympics.After 20 years of jumping, twisting and somersaulting for hours every day, simply trying to act ‘normal’ will be difficult for the girl who has always been hyperactive.‘Even at home I can’t sit still and watch a film,’ admits Tweddle. ‘I’ll be wandering around doing something. It annoys my flatmate and my boyfriend (Steven, 30, whom she has been seeing for 18 months). I definitely won’t retire  straightaway. This is all I’ve known since I was seven. I will never walk away from gymnastics, I just need to find the next step.’When she does, it won’t be easy finding the next Beth Tweddle.

The 27-year-old will now miss the European Championships, the last major competition before London, which take place in Brussels on May 9-13.
The injury is understood to be a long-term problem but Tweddle remains confident she will be fully fit in time for the Olympics, which will be her last competition before she retires from the sport.
She said: “I’m disappointed not to be in a position to attend the Europeans but also thankful that this gives me the opportunity to get myself fully fit and ready for the rest of the season.
“Certainly, it’s much better for this process to happen now rather than later in the year. I am very much still in the gym every day and will continue to work alongside the British Gymnastics medical team to ensure I manage my recovery.”
Tweddle is one of Britain’s main medal hopes in gymnastics, having won world gold on the uneven bars in 2006 and 2010 and gold in the floor exercise when the World Championships were staged in the London Olympic venue in 2009.
Tim Jones, the British Gymnastics performance director, said: “It is important for us to protect Beth and safeguard her Olympic dreams.
“It is in Beth’s best interests that we have decided not to consider her for the European Championships, allowing her to spend the time working with the British Gymnastics medical team and her coach to ensure a speedy return to full fitness.”

The sport was very different back then. These days we have National Lottery funding and there are many more competitors out there. When I first started there weren’t really any role models for me to aspire to at an international level. British gymnasts such as Lisa Mason were making finals but they weren’t winning medals. It wasn’t until I was 16 or 17 when I started to realise I could get to the top. I won my first European-level competition and my outlook changed overnight. Suddenly I wanted to put together a routine to win a medal at the Europeans, rather than simply qualify for it. It wasn’t plain sailing: the Eastern European girls weren’t used to having a British girl in the final and did their best to make me feel that I wasn’t meant to be there but in 2003, I won a bronze on the uneven bars at the World Championships – the first British gymnast ever to win a medal at this level.
At the last Olympics in Beijing I finished fourth on the uneven bars. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it was the most disappointing result I’ve ever achieved. Fourth place was so close to a medal yet so far. I resolved to give up gymnastics altogether and went off to Greece for a week. My body was hurting and I figured I’d done what I could with the sport. But after a few days on the beach, my body was twitching to get back into the gym. When I got home I texted my coach to ask what time I was due in for training and that was that.
I know that it’s not normal to flip yourself about but that’s what we train to do. Occasionally I look at the bars and wonder how the heck do I get myself up there and I used to be scared of the beam – it’s a bit mad to backflip along a plank of wood 10cm wide – but thankfully the equipment I compete on isn’t what I train on every day. I work with softer mats and if I’m learning a new skill, I wear a harness band around my waist. By the time I perform a routine in a competition, I will have practised it a thousand times in the gym. My body goes into autopilot; my muscles know exactly what they’re doing.
Still, my parents used to worry about the intense impact the sport puts on my limbs. I’ve suffered more injuries than most. When I was 12 I broke my ankle very badly in a competition. Ever since then I’ve had problems with landings. I’ve had to adapt to what my ankle can cope with, which means I can only land facing forwards. Over the years I must have had about 10 operations – seven on my feet and three on my shoulders – but thankfully I received excellent medical care and the doctors don’t think there will be any long-term damage.
After Beijing I gave up the beam and the vault in order to focus on the floor exercise, the uneven bars and the team event at the London Olympics. My body can’t do the same intensity of training as it could when I was 15 or 16 and my coach, Amanda Reddin, felt that in order to carry on until 2012, I would need to specialise. At 27, I’m relatively old for a gymnast. When I first arrived on the scene there weren’t many people who were older than 20. But these days it’s an accepted fact that you can perform for many more years if you look after your body. It’s not just me flying the flag for the older gymnasts; there are girls on the circuit older than myself.
If I make it to the Olympics, I won’t be wearing a “lucky” leotard. They don’t work: success is down to hard work, not what outfit you’re wearing. People often ask how I can handle wearing a leotard in public. It must be because I’ve been living in one since the age of seven, because I’m naturally quite body-shy. When I was at university I hated wearing a swimming costume in front of my friends. They couldn’t understand how I could be embarrassed about it when I wear a leotard on national television, but it’s a completely different thing. When I’m in the gym, that’s what I wear. When I’m with my friends, I don’t generally hang around in a swimming costume.
On Sunday evening I’ll go out to the cinema or for a meal with Steve. When I was younger I struggled with fluctuating weight, but now I’m older my body has settled in to its natural weight. My friends hate me because I can more or less eat what I like, but I do have to be careful simply because of the impact extra weight has on my performance. If I put on a kilo, it’s akin to 10kg when you add gravity.
I think I could feel rather gloomy as Sunday draws to a close, but thankfully I don’t need to be at the gym until 2pm the following day so I can look forward to an easy start on Monday. Amanda is well aware that training should be fun as well as work, and is determined to keep it that way in the high-pressure weeks leading up to the Olympics. Whatever happens, I have no regrets about going for it. I’ve gone a lot further in gymnastics than I ever thought I would and I will be able to look back on the London Olympics and say “I’m glad I tried for a medal” rather than “I wish I tried”. All I need now is a bit of luck on my side.
In shortHerbal tea or stiff drink?Neither. I’ll have a Diet Coke.
Favourite item of clothing?My socks.
Who is your inspiration?Kelly Holmes and Paula Radcliffe – they’ve had injuries but they still achieve great things.
What is your ultimate dream?To finish my career with an Olympic medal.
Your perfect weekend away?I’d go to the Bahamas or Barbados.
The highest point of your career?Winning the world title at the O2 Arena in 2009.
The lowest point of your career?I had a scary fall at the Europeans in 2002.
What irritates you the most?Mess.
Last supper?Roast dinner.
Beth's favourite things- My family , my boyfriend and my friends
- My pillow – it goes to all my competitions with me, often covered with a GB flag pillow case
- My phone – when I’m away it’s my only form of contact with my friends and family
- South Africa, where I was born
- My bed at home in Liverpool

BETH TWEDDLE has set herself one major Olympic target – to fly home from ­London in first class!

Tweddle will never forget her miserable flight back from the Beijing Games after finishing fourth in the parallel bars.
She failed to win a medal by a whisker in 2008 after taking a backward step on her dismount and her near miss almost made her quit the sport.
Tweddle thought long and hard about it on the flight home, where she was at the rear of the Team GB plane, near the toilets!
She said: “The medal winners were all in first class. There was no upgrade for me because I didn’t have a medal. It was a ­terrible feeling.
“I then had to wait for my bags at the carousel after the winners’ bags had come out quickly as they had special luggage tags.
“This time hopefully I can fly back to Liverpool in first class.
“I will be gutted if I don’t get a ­ first-class flight. That is my ­ambition in life.”
And it’s no more than ­Britain’s most successful ­gymnast of all time deserves after amassing more titles and medals than any other Brit in her sport.
The three-time world champion has almost single-handedly ­reinvented British gymnastics in a prestigious career spanning 10 years. Her global record now places her in the ‘greatest of all time’ category within her sport.
Tweddle is a double Olympian, three-time world champion, ­six-time European champion, Commonwealth champion and won seven consecutive ­national championships between 2001 and 2007.
In 2009 Tweddle claimed her ­second world title in front of a home crowd at the O2 Arena in ­ London, a phenomenal career highlight and a feat she wants to repeat this summer.
Tweddle, 26, will retire after these ­Olympics but almost quit four years ago after what she felt was a disappointing show in ­Beijing.
She said: “I almost quit. I went on holiday straight away after returning because everything was all about Team GB after we came back on the same plane.
“Every newspaper, TV channel and radio station was all about the homecoming and how well we had done.
“But I just didn’t think I had done that well. I hated it and just wanted to get away from it all.
“It was hard. If anyone had said I would come fourth in the Olympics I would have been over the moon.
“But the fact that I came so close made it hard to accept. I thought that was my last chance at the Olympics gone. I didn’t think I would still be here for these Games.
“I thought I had let myself and my coach down, even though there was no real criticism of me.
“In fact, everyone was ­saying how well I had done. I think it was me that was the problem, rather than anyone else.
“It was so hard I literally booked a holiday with my friend right away. We got the first flight out.
“It turned out to be Kavos. But even on a Greek island people kept asking me about the Games.
“It was a horrible experience. I hated myself, I hated the ­­ Olympics and hated gymnastics.
“There was no way I was ­going to carry on in the sport.”
Thankfully, Tweddle did not carry out her threat to walk away – despite the constant ­reminders of what she regarded as her Beijing failure.
She added: “After a week of not training I was ready to get back in the gym and knew I wasn’t ready to walk away.
“Now I have the ideal chance to make amends. There is a lot of pressure because so many ­people want me to get a medal.
“But my coach has sat me down and said that she doesn’t want me to put too much ­pressure on ­myself and simply enjoy ­myself.”
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It's exciting finally reaching Olympic year but amid all the hype and expectation, people forget how big it all is for the people behind the scenes too.
I’ve been with my coach Amanda Reddin since I was 12 and she knows me inside out. I can go to her and tell her anything – she  has just been so influential on my career.
People like Amanda deserve more credit, and I’m so excited for her as we enter 2012.
Amanda also coaches Hannah Whelan and Jenni Pinches, my Great Britain team-mates, at Liverpool Gymnastics Club so it could be so thrilling if all three of us make the team for the Games.
The key is familiarity – if I have a problem or I’m frustrated about something I can speak to Amanda and she will tell me to stop worrying and relax.
Without her I wouldn’t be where I am today – on the verge of a home Olympics. After Beijing there were doubts whether I’d carry on until London, given I’ll be 27 and old in gymnastics terms.
But Amanda knew that if I kept coming through the door of the club with a smile on my face, I’d be ready to mount another campaign.On the competition front, it’s been fairly quiet as the British women’s artistic team have already qualified for 2012 and won’t be in action at next week’s test event at London’s North Greenwich Arena.
However, come the spring we have the trials and the European Championships so I’m deep into training now.
The men’s artistic team still have their work cut out as they bid to qualify for the Olympics and must finish in the top four.
But I know Louis Smith well and, as the only British Olympic gymnastics medallist of the modern era, he is used to a challenge.
Louis is a very cool guy and used to the pressure so I expect him to take it all in his stride, as will the rest of the men’s team.
Once again the focus will be on him at the test event and, for me, someone else taking centre stage can be a help. There are so many good British gymnasts now, the attention is less concentrated on me.