Critics meet Olympians: Lucy Mangan meets British Olympic gymnasts – in pictures

'Danusia Francis, 18, is one of four reserves for Britain’s gymnastics team. "The day I wake up with no aches or pains in at least one part of my body, I’ll be surprised. When you watch gymnastics and see how beautiful it is, with the sparkly leotards and glitter, you don’t realise that most gymnasts are on Ibuprofen or something stronger.”' Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian

'Gymnastics is the only sport that’s ever held any appeal for me. It’s probably because participants don’t compete directly with each other, or race side-by-side – this is a pure battle between themselves and the equipment.' Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian

'When watching the gymnastics, you can simply sit there and marvel at the power, grace and beauty of the human body – so similar and yet so impossibly different from your own flabby fleshsack – and to hell with all the points chicanery and medal nonsense.' Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian

'Seeing the gymnasts arrayed before you at different stages of training gives the effect of watching a single athlete’s evolution, from soft-fleshed-but-iron-willed child to would-be Olympian, body as tough as her concentration, now practising harness- and wire-free on the bars proper.' Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian

'These are ordinary people made of blood, bone and sinew – not gamma-rayed or transformed by radioactive spiders, but by years and years of effort, discipline, passion and sacrifice. Perhaps sport lovers sense this instinctively, and that is what moves them too.' Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian