London 2012 Olympics: Beth Tweddle's bronze marks end to an incredible career

 
Career end: Beth Tweddle is Britain's most successful ever gymnast Pic: PA
Pic: PA
6 August 2012

After years of hoping for Olympic success, Beth Tweddle finally completed her incredible career today.

She won a bronze medal in the final of the uneven bars competition at the North Greenwich Arena, despite making a mistake at the very end of her routine.

Tweddle looked relaxed as she arrived for competition, waving to all corners of the arena before and after her routine. Some dazzlingly complex work on the bars then earned whoops and gasps from a huge crowd as desperate as she was for success.

Just as in the 2008 Beijing Games, a stumble in her dismount cost her valuable points. But this time, her execution score of 8.916 was enough to keep her in the medal places and put the final touches to the most extraordinary gymnastics career in British history.

Competing in her third Olympic Games of a career that includes three world championships and six European titles, Tweddle was already Great Britain’s most decorated gymnast, for which she was awarded the MBE in 2010.

Finishing fourth by a whisker on the bars at Beijing in 2008 rankled her into prolonging a career to the ripe age of 27: the geriatric years for a female gymnast. Tweddle was the only competitor in today’s final not to have been born in the 1990s.

Despite her grand age, she had begun her final as home favourite ahead of the 16-year old American Gabby Douglas and 17-year old Russian Victoria Komova, the reigning world champion on the bars.

Douglas and Komova won gold and silver respectively in the all-round individual and team events at these Games. But Tweddle had qualified in first place for this final with a score of 16.133, which included the round’s highest execution score of 9.133.

The defending Olympic champion, China’s He Kexin, opened the final with a complex routine that was scored at 15.933 and earned her the silver medal. She was followed by Komova, who finished her routine on the verge of tears of disappointment after a routine that included two small mistakes and failed to place her in the medal positions.

The routine of the day, however, belonged to Russia’s Aliya Mustafina, who scored 16.133, who won the gold medal to complete a set including team silver and all-round bronze at these Games.

Tweddle is first reserve for tomorrow’s floor exercise final. Assuming that she does not compete in that event, today probably marked her swansong in a sport she has graced for more than a decade as Britain’s most distinguished performer.

For that alone she deserved the thunderous standing ovation that greeted her when she walked out for the into the North Greenwich Arena today, and carried her out as she departed.

Tweddle has earned a quiet retirement. After an 11-year senior career she now sleeps with an ice machine in her bedroom to help her aged body recover from the strain of competition.

Assuming a damaged knee is up to any more exertion, she is now said to be a leading target for producers of the BBC reality show ‘Strictly Come Dancing.’

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