Amy, 16, bags us a bronze weeks after her exams
AT 16, she is the youngest member of Team GB and has been given time off from her exams to compete. Last night gymnast Amy Tinkler won bronze on the floor – becoming Britain’s youngest medallist for 32 years.
The teenager, who used to practice her back flips on her parents’ bed, wowed the crowd in Rio with a sassy routine to a Kenny G track from the film Pretty Woman.
Miss Tinkler put her hands to her mouth when she realised she had won. There were no tears on the podium, just a huge smile as she waved to the crowd following an incredible performance.
Just 20 minutes later, Nile Wilson took bronze on the high bars, taking Britain’s tally in the gymnastics arena to an astonishing seven medals. It comes after Max Whitlock’s historic double gold on Sunday. Miss Tinkler and Wilson’s medals take Britain’s all-time Olympic gymnastics medal count to 16.
The gymnast, who only turned 16 in October and took her GCSE in PE before coming to Rio, is the youngest member of the 366-strong GB delegation. She is just 4ft 9ins and has size three feet.
She said: ‘I can’t believe it. I knew I was Team GB’s youngest athlete but this is crazy and I’m still in shock at the minute.
‘I was placed. I went out there and did my best and enjoyed it so whatever the result, I would have been happy. I really am speechless.’ She added: ‘I put no pressure on myself and neither did my coaches. They just told me I had nothing to lose and to go out and enjoy it.
‘It has been an incredible week for British gymnastics.’
Miss Tinkler, from Bishop Auckland in County Durham, was once so ‘meek and mild’ she used to cry when she was dropped off at pracinto
‘It’s been an incredible week’
tice sessions but soon showed a ‘hidden competitive streak’.
An only child, she started gymnastics at the age of two – joining South Durham Gymnastics Club where her mother Nora, 44, was a recreational coach. She once said one of her earliest memories was doing a flip on her bed ‘and coming the gym the next day so excited to tell everyone’.
By the age of five, she was beginning to stand out from her peers and was put on an elite programme. Her coach Nicola Preston said: ‘Amy was so meek and mild that she used to cry whenever her mum left her at the door.
‘But she had this hidden competitive streak. She always wanted to win. If they were collecting stickers, she wanted to be the person with the most stickers.’
Miss Tinker said that while her parents watched TV she preferred to spend hours practising back flips on all the beds and acrobatics in the front room. ‘I had far too much energy,’ she said.
The teenager entered her first competition at seven and started representing Britain in junior competitions aged 11. She trains for 31 hours a week but her Facebook page is that of a typical 16 year old, full of pictures of her and her friends. She missed the European Championships in June to concentrate on school exams.
But she has been given permission by her school, Durham High School for Girls, to stagger her GCSEs – taking some this year and the rest in 2017. Her mother and father Michael, 46, a company manager, were in the crowd at Rio to support her.
Fellow gymnast Wilson, 20, from Leeds, punched the air with both fists after his routine. His father Neil said: ‘I can’t describe the emotions. We were not expecting a medal at this Olympics and he has only gone and done it.
‘I think we are going to have a few beers tonight with our son and dance to some Brazilian music.’