Pity Britain’s gymnasts. Their competition over, they had finally been able to celebrate their historic achievements – for most of them, their first taste of alcohol in more than a year – only to be woken up the next morning by a fire drill and forced to evacuate their building. Louis Smith, who had only been in his bed a few hours, headed straight to the pool for a nap.
Such a rude awakening will not take the gloss off a fortnight the men’s technical director, Eddie Van Hoof, describes as “beyond all dreams”. When Nile Wilson wrapped up the competition with Britain’s first Olympic medal on the high bar – they had also taken their first in men’s and women’s floor, and the men’s all-around – his coaches watching back home were “sobbing their hearts out”.
The eventual record-breaking tally for gymnastics was seven medals, including, thanks to Bryony Page, their first ever in trampolining. Max Whitlock had ended Britain’s century-long wait for gold with not one but two Olympic titles. “They’re such a good close-knit team,” says Van Hoof. “They’ve all got their issues with one another but they’re competitors, and they’re really focused.”
Ah yes, those “issues”. Among the leaps and twirls, the most gif-able moment of the gymnastics turned out to be Louis Smith’s murmured comment seconds after he was beaten into silver on the pommel horse by Whitlock. Much amateur lipreading has been done over whether Smith actually said: “That’s bullshit, man.” Smith claims he said: “Should be proud, man.”
Van Hoof’s response suggests otherwise. “It’s the sort of thing somebody says on the spur of the moment because the result hasn’t gone their way,” he says. “It’s an off-the-cuff thing and we’re not reading too much into it.”
To be fair to Smith, his gracious words about Whitlock after the final went largely unreported – “I’m quite good at eating humble pie” – and he waved away suggestions that he was partly responsible for Whitlock’s success. “I’m not the reason Max won a gold today, let’s be honest. Max did a fantastic job.”
Van Hoof describes his two prime assets – who now have two golds, two silvers and five bronzes between them – as the “Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg” of the gymnastics world. “They’re not best buddies, they’re not going to go out socialising together but they respect each other and it’s healthy competition.”
There is rivalry, too, between the men’s and women’s teams in gymnastics, so it was a big moment when Amy Tinkler’s bronze on the floor brought some long-awaited reward in their final event. “I think it was a huge sense of relief,” admitted Van Hoof, “because we are competitive between the two disciplines.”
The women’s team have come a long way since Beth Tweddle used to carry their only hope – they took bronze in last year’s world championships – so even a best-finish fifth in the team final and a 13th place for Ellie Downie in the all-around final, might have left them deflated. “You feel for them when somebody doesn’t achieve what they wanted to, and we were off doing our thing and getting the results, and then it’s such a fine margin to miss out. Amy did an amazing job.”
Before Beijing, Britain had taken only three medals in their entire history: but from then, 12. The British team is rocketing as fast as Simone Biles off the vault.
It was only in 2004 when the sport’s funding was withdrawn, having failed to produce a single medallist in 86 years. The idea of winning anything, back then, seemed laughable. Quite literally. Smith revealed after his pommel final that in 2007, the then 16-year-old had been asked to a meeting with gymnastics officials to discuss his aspirations.
“I said I want to win an Olympic gold medal and they laughed as if to say: ‘You’re not going to, let’s be realistic.’ And I was like: ‘What’s funny?’
Van Hoof admits he, too, did not picture this rapid success. “Not at all. Ten years ago we started a programme with the aim of qualifying a team for London and it just snowballed.” You know you’ve done well when even Jürgen Gröbler, the Gandalf of Team GB’s coaching staff, is impressed with you.
With great achievement comes great expectation, as Charles Dickens might have said if he had got in a room with Stan Lee. Van Hoof is ready for it. “I saw a chart that suggested how much a medal costs from the other sports and I think we’re the second most economical one. With this number of medals as well, I think it can just grow our programme even more.”
Gymnastics is second in the table of British sports by medal count, behind cycling and ahead of rowing. It has less than half the funding of rowing – £14m compared to £32m – and two more medals at these games.
It is backed up by an explosion of interest at recreational level: “There’s not a club that doesn’t have a waiting list already, so where we’re going to put them all I have no idea. It’s just so healthy.”
With no team competitions in 2017, there will be a renewed focus on the younger gymnasts – expect to see new faces pulling new tricks very soon. “There’s a whole bunch of juniors at home who want some of this now,” says Van Hoof. “This will just grow and grow.”
