Ellie Downie: ‘You realise that not many people can do what we can do’

British gymnastic champion prefers to focus on herself rather than watching her rivals

While Ellie Downie lives gymnastics every day, and has for as long she can remember, she resides in an often brutal house of pain to which most of us rarely devote a second thought. Every couple of years a major championships is televised, at which point we find our minds temporarily boggled by the extraordinary combination of confidence, balance, strength, courage, agility, coordination, endurance and grace required for these gifted athletes to go about their compelling craft.

As she prepares for the Gymnastics World Cup in Birmingham’s Genting Arena on Saturday, I wonder if the recently crowned British champion ever pauses to consider just how preposterously good she is at attuning mind and body to perform assorted potentially injurious disciplines that most mere mortals could not even countenance attempting?

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2JBLZIT

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