Ellie comes out of retirement to help Arabian

The 19-year-old has been out of competition for three years, but after five weeks of intense training, turned back the clock in a remarkable performance in Spalding, Lincolnshire.

Arabian, sponsored by The Engineering Quest, have won the Level 3 competition for three years running, and Ellie’s gold on the vault, silver in the beam and bronze on the floor helped them defend the title in dramatic fashion.

Level 4 team also saw another gymnast pulled out of retirement with 14 year- old Molly Harris. Molly also made an impact helping her team win the Gold medal position, giving the top two teams a clean sweep.

Molly took gold on bars, Silver on Beam and Vault. Lucy Thompson won silver on Bars and floor and bronzes for Beam and Vault.

Natalia Andrzejak won a cracking gold on Balance beam making it a clean sweep for the team on beam and a bronze on vault whilst Hannah Bond, the eldest to compete, took a bronze on bars making bars a clean sweep.

In the youngest team at level 5 there was a first ever competition for Shannon McCarthy and she did very well indeed helping her team- mates Alysha Howton, Cara Mason and Naomi Fedoriw win the bronze medal.

Individual medals were won by Cara Mason, who took silver for her floor performance, and bronze for Alysha Howton on balance beam.

But the undoubted start of the show was Ellie, according to head coach Alan Armitage.

He said: “No-one saw that performance coming from Ellie who was only supposed to be in the team as a back up, but in the end she was our top performer.

“It just goes to show that retirement is a term that should not be used in our sport.

“It was a great result for all the gymnasts.”