Beth Tweddle (full name Elizabeth Kimberly Tweddle,
born April 1, 1985, Johannesburg, South Africa) is
the most decorated British gymnast of all time. She
is the current European Champion and a former (2006)
World Champion on the uneven bars.
Tweddle hails from Bunbury, Cheshire in the
northwest of England, and began gymnastics at the
age of seven. Training with coach, 1984 Olympic
Gymnast, Amanda Kirby (nee Harrison) at the City of
Liverpool Gymnastics Club, Beth won her first
British National Championships in 2001, an
achievement she would repeat every year through
2007. She also helped her club team, Liverpool, win
the British Team Championships four consecutive
times.
In her World Championships debut in 2001, Tweddle
placed 24th in the all-around final. She would
improve drastically in 2002, when she won a bronze
medal on the uneven bars at the European
Championships in Patras, Greece. Her medal was the
first ever for a British gymnast at Europeans. Later
in the same year, she finished a close fourth in the
bars final at the World Championships and won three
medals at the Commonwealth Games: silver in the team
final and all-around and gold on the uneven bars. In
2003 Beth became the first UK female gymnast to
medal at the World Championships with a bronze on
the bars.
2004 began as a promising year for Tweddle; she won
a silver medal on the uneven bars at the European
Championships, second only to double Olympic and
septuple World Champion Svetlana Khorkina. She
competed on the UK team at the 2004 Olympics in
Athens and was considered an excellent prospect for
a medal on bars, but barely missed qualifying for
the event final. There was disappointment too in the
all-around final, where she fell twice from beam.
Her 17th place was the best ever achieved by a
British woman, but clearly she was capable of
better.
Despite a below par Olympics and the fact that the
rest of the team had retired, Beth continued to
train hard and came back with a vengeance at the
2004 World Cup Final in Birmingham. The first
British woman ever to qualify, she thrilled the home
crowd with an upgraded bar routine which included a
Khorkina I to Geinger release combination. However,
she lost to American Chellsie Memmel by 0.013, a
tiny margin in gymnastics. China's Li Ya, who
finished third, expressed her disquiet with the
result, arguing that Tweddle was superior. However
Beth herself filed no protest, and went on to finish
fifth in the floor finals.
Beth began 2005 with a bang in the preliminaries of
the European Championships, qualifying second to the
all-around and top eight on every event. However, in
a pattern that was to become familiar, she had to
withdraw through injury.
There was more luck, however, at the 2005 World
Championships in Australia. There, Beth finished 4th
in the all-around, easily the best ever finish from
a Briton. She injured herself in the warm-up for
bars finals, though still managing a bronze. However
she had to withdraw from floor finals because of
this.
Tweddle had aspirations to compete in the 2006
Commonwealth Games, however, she was forced to
withdraw from the meet with an injury. She
recuperated in time to compete in the 2006 European
Championships, where she captured the uneven bars
title with a performance that scored a full point
ahead of that of the next competitor. With her win,
Tweddle became the first British gymnast ever to win
a gold medal at Europeans.
Tweddle's great strength is the uneven bars; she is
one of the only women currently competing a routine
with two consecutive high bar release moves.
However, she has also emerged as a strong all-around
gymnast and a floor exercise specialist in recent
years, qualifying for the all-around and FX event
finals at many international.
