BETH BAR NONE
She’s overcome pain and disappointment. Now, for her perfect Olympic finale, Tweddle must be...
ShE’s the golden girl of British gymnastics and a three- time world champion who dreams of walking away from her last olympics with the only medal missing from a brilliant career.
Even among her peers, however, Beth Tweddle does not quite get the recognition she deserves.
Take her signature move. halfway through her routine on the uneven bars, Tweddle and her coach amanda reddin devised a unique manoeuvre in which she catches the bar with her hands crossed.
‘It had got to the stage where the judges knew my routine before I’d even started it,’ says Tweddle. ‘We needed something wow.’
The International Gymnastics Federation liked it; so much so that they bestowed the ultimate honour on the amiable girl from the Cheshire village of Bunbury by naming the move after her in their worldwide code of skills. only they misspelled it.
‘It’s called The Tweedle!’ exclaims Tweddle, dissolving into a fit of giggles. ‘hopefully they’ll get it right next time.’ If she wins a gold in either the bars or the floor exercise at London 2012, it’s unlikely that anyone will get her name wrong again.
an olympic medal is, after all, the only omission from an extensive collection that includes three world titles, six European titles, seven British titles, mBE, third place in the 2006 BBC sports personality of the Year and plenty of other awards since taking up the sport at the age of seven. There would be an olympic bronze in there as well but for the disastrous little step forward she took on her dismount in Beijing four years ago.
having already missed out on the bars final in athens in 2004 by a fraction of a point, it was enough to cost her third place by an even more marginal 0.025 points. Tweddle places her hands side by side on the floor. ‘It was from here to here,’ she says. ‘The smallest little step but enough to take me out of the medals.
‘my coach has told me that people would see it as failure if I don’t pick up a medal from these Games, but they don’t realise how hard it is. There is such a fine line in gymnastics. half a fraction of a second and it goes crashing down. and that fraction of a second can work the other way and it can be perfect.’
so by the time Tweddle ends her performance on the bars at London 2012 with a dismount, just how many times will she have done it?
‘Thousands,’ she says. ‘It sounds silly but I will have trained 20 years
‘I DID THINK “WHY DO I DO IT JUST TO END IN HEARTACHE?”
for a 30-second bar routine, and a 90-second floor routine. It’s tough but I suppose it’s triple the amount of time the sprinters get.’
The chance to bury the haunting memory of Beijing motivates Tweddle almost as much as ending her competitive career by winning an olympic medal on home soil.
she still cannot bring herself to watch it (‘I will when I retire but why bring up things that don’t make you happy?’). after Beijing she flew straight to the Greek island of Kavos to get as far away from the olympics as possible. It didn’t work. ‘Everyone was talking about the Games,’ she recalls. ‘ They saw fourth as an amazing achievement but I didn’t want to be reminded of the fact I’d failed.
‘I did think, “Why do I do it just to end in heartache?” I’m not a massive drinker but I let my hair down. I knew that wasn’t the end, though. I was itching to get back in the gym.
‘I want to be able to look back and say I tried rather than sitting in the audience thinking, “hang on, I could have been up there at the top”.’
Tweddle describes her routine in Beijing as ‘the hardest in the world’ and if she wants a medal, she will have to gamble again.
she does not know what her rivals have up their sleeves, although they know exactly what to expect from her after her new olympic routines on the bars and floor — paul mcCartney’s management company have given her permission to use Live and Let Die for the latter — went up on YouTube within half an hour of her comeback performances following surgery to repair a damaged knee cartilage in april.
‘You can’t really keep anything quiet,’ says Tweddle, who has previously undergone three operations on her shoulders and seven on her feet, as well as having pins inserted in her left ankle when she was 12.
‘It can be a little bit annoying, especially with the floor routine. You want to show it the first time looking good, but everyone knows what it is now.
‘I could put out a routine that pretty much 100 per cent of the time would put me in the final, but it wouldn’t get me a medal. I don’t want to look back saying that I just played safe. I’ve got to go for broke.
‘The dismount I’m hoping to do if my knee’s oK has taken me four years to get into my routine. That just shows how hard it actually is.’
In order to perform the two twists with double somersault finale, Tweddle has been sleeping with a £3,500 ice machine strapped to her left knee each night to speed up the recovery, such is her determination to be in top condition. Even at the age of 27 — a veteran in the world of gymnastics — Tweddle has kept to a 30-hours-a-week training regime under reddin, her coach since the age of 12, at the City of Liverpool Gymnastics Club in Toxteth.
she has sundays off and trains for a half-day on Thursday. The rest of the week involves double threehour sessions.
Did Tweddle think she would still be working so hard and competing at 27? ‘No, never,’ she says. ‘But I do gymnastics because I love it. I don’t remember it turning from a hobby to a career.
‘I’m still getting funded (£25,000 a year from the National Lottery). It’s not something I can retire on but I’m only young and I’ve got a lifetime to do other stuff.
‘When I was at school, they’d say,
‘I’VE TRAINED 20 YEARS FOR A 30-SECOND ROUTINE’
“miss it, it’s only one session”, but that one session could be the difference in medals. I’m lucky that I have good friends. They understand that my training is No 1. I still go out and they love it because I’m a free taxi service.
‘my last drink was when we won the Europeans last year — a glass of champagne to celebrate. That’s pretty much it. so sad, isn’t it?
‘a few people will be on the champagne if I win in London but I try to stay away from that thought.
‘amanda knows I’m not the little girl I was. I can’t do the same amount of training. I have to be a lot cleverer. I’ve been with her since I was 12 and probably seen more of her than my mum, so she’s had to grow up with me.
‘a lot of people ask amanda, “What’s Beth done to get these results?” she tells them it’s hard work. she doesn’t have to push me or motivate me to win a medal. I walk in the gym wanting to work.
‘I’ve never had that phase where I want to quit. I’m not some sort of alien. It’s just hard work and determination to get on with it. a lot of people are learning that from me and amanda. If things don’t happen the first time, don’t cry about it, get up and try again.’
It’s an approach that has helped Tweddle alter the perception of British gymnastics. There was a time when her sport was the preserve of Eastern Europeans; when simply turning up constituted success for the Brits. Not any more.
‘You’d go to competitions thinking we were just there to have a good time,’ says Tweddle. ‘There was never even the mention of a medal or a final.
‘a lot of it’s down to belief within the gymnasts themselves. They’ve realised we can do it. Now we walk into an arena and people are like, “Great Britain are here, they’re medal contenders”. They look at us rather than us looking at them.’
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.