‘Helping to change gymnastics better than medals’

The influence British gymnast Becky Downie and her sister Ellie will have had reforming the sport will better anything she achieved as an athlete, according to the two-time Olympian.

Becky, 32, spoke out in 2020 alongside her younger sibling about “ingrained” and “completely normalised” abusive issues in the sport.

The Whyte Review, published in 2022, found physical and emotional abuse within gymnastics in Britain to be “systemic”, and led to the governing body issuing a 40-point action plan called Reform ’25, external to make changes in the sport.

Ellie retired at the age of 23 in January 2023 because of concerns about her mental health, while Becky – a two-time Commonwealth Games and three-time European Championship gold medal winner – has focused on competing for Team GB at the Paris Olympics this summer.

“Medals are great, but what we have managed to do for the history of sport and knowing that we have had such a positive impact on the future of children’s lives, and not just kids but coaches coming through, that’s something I never imagined we would be able to do,” Becky told BBC East Midlands Today.

“When we started in the sport everyone was like, ‘This is just how gymnastics is’, so to be able to say we were the people or part of the contributing people that actually made the sport a better place, you can’t ask for any more than that.”

Read more here https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/gymnastics/articles/cyxxl5kw4z1o