Gymnastics: British girls shine in Tokyo

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The British gymnastics team produced a superb near faultless display in the women’s team final at the 2011 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships to finish in 5th place in Tokyo, the best team result in history.

The team of Beth Tweddle, Jenni Pinches, Danusia Francis, Rebecca Downie, Hannah Whelan and Imogen Cairns combined to score 169.670 and finish 5th place ahead of Germany, Japan and Australia. USA took the title well clear of Russia with China in Bronze.

The British girls began their event on the floor with clean performances by Cairns, Whelan and Tweddle getting the team off to a great start.

With cheers all around the arena for the ongoing battle between USA and Russia, the British girls moved onto bars, where the attention of the arena then turned to Tweddle and she didn’t disappoint with a near perfect routine and the biggest cheer of the whole week for her 15.666.

Having worked hard approaching the championships Tweddle said: “The bars routine was really great, it was for myself in many ways as I wanted to prove a point, it’s the best routine I’ve done since being here and I’m very happy to produce that for my coach Amanda.”

The girls were looking good with just the nerve-wracking beam to go and Pinches was up first with her only routine of the day and put in an exemplary performance.

Francis then took the pressure for a beautiful routine leaving Whelan, the team’s most consistent all-around gymnast up last, Hannah completed the clean beam round for GBR to give the team 169.670 and 5th place.

Beth Tweddle is set to compete in the floor final on Sunday with Whelan now looking forward to Thursdays all-around final, she said: “It’s amazing, after reaching the top 8 in qualifying and getting the team to 2012 which was our number one aim, we knew we could just go out and enjoy the final and we definitely did that.

“Looking ahead to the all-around it’s a similar situation as I can go out there with nothing to lose and have fun and see where that gets me so I’m really looking forward to it!”

Results
1 USA 179.411
2 RUS 175.329
3 CHN 172.820
4 ROU 172.412
5 GBR 169.670
6 GER 168.479
7 JPN 167.122
8 AUS 166.739

GBR scores
Floor – Cairns 13.700, Whelan 13.600, Tweddle 14.533
Vault – Francis 13.566, Whelan 13.966, Cairns 14.133
Bars – Whelan 13.466, Downie 14.433, Tweddle 15.666
Beam – Pinches 13.833, Francis 14.141, Whelan 14.633

Robyn Rashford, Sportsister
The Women’s Sports Magazine.

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