Becky Downie had a difficult season last year. She came off an elbow injury to compete at the European Championships but injured her ankle in training. She then came back for the World Championships and made the bars final but fell and placed 7th in the final. A few weeks after Worlds, she underwent ankle surgery.
This week, she made her comeback with a spectacular bars routine that earned her the first place in the qualification. Downie will compete in the UB final on Sunday. She also competed on beam and was generally happy with her routine despite a fall:
“I’m really pleased to make a start. Coming in today, all I wanted was to do the best routine that I could. I know that this is a slightly different competition setup, the format meant that both Georgia and I both were doing bars today and it was very competitive. I knew I could do a good routine and still not make a final today. I was able to come back on beam as well, not quite what I planned but it’s important to remember that the starting point is not the end goal.
“Obviously, we know that Nina [Derwael] is number one and that’s the level where we want to be. It’s really hard for me to say that I’m going to have X,Y,Z start value because it will depend on what I can get. Everybody on bars has got these connections now and the connections are a big deal. I’m in the process of learning those connections which is not easy. As much as my routine has all the big releases, I can’t control those releases to make a connection. I feel like bars kind of favors tall people a little bit more, because for these connections the bar is kind of there. I’m a little bit smaller, so I’ve got to find the techniques that work for me and it might be a little bit different. One reason to come to a competition like this is to see so many gymnasts, so many different body types, learning different skills, making them in training or failing them in training. It’s good for me to see it too and it makes me a little bit happier about where I actually am. We don’t want to change the construction of the routine too much because it’s getting closer to the Olympics. So, I’m going to try to build on what I have.”
“I’m actually pretty pleased with the beam routine. I got on and I didn’t feel really nervous at all, I felt pretty calm and aside from the stupid mistake, the rest was actually really good. Unfortunately, the mistake I had was really costly, so it was basically like I’d fallen twice. So, if you look at the end goal, the potential is still there. I don’t have a big dismount like I used to, but I’m working on it. So, there’s definitely a lot of potential and it’s kind of giving me hope.”
In Doha, she was first up in the UB final and decided to go for broke in an aim to win a medal. This didn’t quite pan out but she feels she doesn’t regret trying it:
“I was disappointed, obviously, the final went how it did, but at the same time, I did know I was taking a huge risk. I didn’t go into that final like I’m 100% gonna hit that routine because I’ve done it a hundred times. That was not the case, unfortunately. And in that final, I wasn’t going first, so I couldn’t play it safe and do my easier routine that could’ve maybe gotten me a medal. But at the same time, I’ve put this routine and I wanted to give it a go. So, I don’t really regret that. It gave me more experience still, but it wasn’t easy to finish on a low and then I had surgery again.”
She feels like at the Olympics she would probably go with a safer routine if she was in a similar situation again:
“I think it would come down to… For me, it’s always been about how many routines I did and how confident I felt. At Worlds, I really didn’t have that many full routines, it was my first final in three years, so just to be in that final was massive for me, so I gave everything I had. The Olympics are a different goal, though.”
She plans on upgrading her bars routine but feels like there is a lot of competition on the event right now:
“I’ve made that huge routine and that’s it for 2020, it’s just too low – the execution. That probably would let me down in the end. So I wanted to look at what I can do with a routine, I have so many skills, it’s taken so long to find what really suits me, and this routine – I have one really good skill in that, it’s still not as clean and pretty as I like it to look. But I am still learning it. I’m really pleased with the routine that I did well today. I just want to get more experience with it.”
“I know that in the next year, year and a half I need a bigger start value. At this point in time, it kind of still is enough but everybody’s working on very similar routines that you can see around the world, so I know that it needs to be done. It always feels like you’re chasing time, chasing difficulty, and you’re never quite there but I feel like I might as well appreciate where I come from while I’m still going.”
Downie hopes to get more events back as this would increase her chances of making the four-person team in Tokyo. At 27 years old and after a long career, she feels like it’s easier to compete on floor now as it feels more like a tumble track used to feel in the past:
“I am working floor again. I’m taking it very-very slow. I was actually working all-around at the end of 2017 and had full pieces almost back and then I rolled my ankle and that kind of changed everything for 2018. This time around, I’m just trying to be smarter in training and focus on getting my body as strong as it can be. I feel like it’s going really well at the moment. I’m not planning on focusing on just these two pieces, I know that the team needs to be better. Maybe, I’ll only be doing two pieces next year, but hopefully, I’ll be able to do more. Maybe, I’ll be able to bring vault back but it’s probably one of the harder ones because of my ankle. But the floor changed over the years so much. When I go to floor now, it feels like track, which is actually really nice. I’ll first make sure my body’s strong enough to do it. So, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to be in rehab for the past three years. I feel like things are starting to pay off for me now.”
“The hardest thing right now is constantly worrying about where and when I need to be in the next year. It’s very frustrating, I’m working very hard but it constantly feels like it’s not quite enough. But I can only do what I can do and I’ve been working hard every day. It’s actually paid off on bars. Beam was not quite as good but it’s getting there and actually, the podium training went great yesterday. It’s been annoying but I walked away from the competition, I’m in one piece. I’m excited for the final but I’m also excited to get back in training. I really wanted to do this competition, these connections I’ve been training on bars have been going really well these past two weeks and I felt like I couldn’t really afford to lose a week by going to compete. But at the same time, I know I needed this experience and needed to get back out there. I’m just excited for what’s coming, I want to really enjoy this last year of my career.”
“At this point in time, my body feels great, my ankles are feeling good and probably taking all this time off might be not such a bad thing. I know that they need to be strong to do what I’ve got to do and that’s been the focus of the surgery – to get my body super strong and to be able to take what I need to do.”
Her main goal for this year is to help the British team to qualify to the Tokyo Olympics and she hopes to be a part of that team in Tokyo:
“At this point in time, team is the route I want to go down. The individual spot route is actually really hard. And while I’m good at bars, it’s not an easy route to go down and I find World Cups really hard. You have one day of training and you have to compete. And bars are such a technical piece in terms of timing and getting used to the apparatus, so I find that difficult. The team route has always been what I’ve wanted to do, but I know it means that I need to try getting more events back. Floor and vault are actually among the easier events, I just need to get my body strong enough to do them. I think as a team, we’re going to do something really special, despite not making the team final last year, that was disappointing.”
You can watch Becky Downie compete in the uneven bars final at the European Games on Sunday (schedule and streams).
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