Downie slumps to 16th after fall on asymmetric bars at World Gymnastics

By Chris Cottrell, Sportsbeat, at the o2

 REBECCA Downie had to settle for 16th in the women's all-around final after a fall on the asymmetric bars put pay to her World Gymnastics Championships challenge.

 THEY THINK IT'S FALL OVER: Rebecca Downie's all-around final challenge comes to a halt after three falls in last two apparatus

The 17-year old was never in the running for a medal, with Americans Bridget Sloan and Rebecca Bross storming to gold and silver and Japan's Koko Tsurumi taking bronze.

But the Nottingham gymnast was heading for a top five finish until an early fall in her asymmetric bars routine left her with too much ground to catch up.

A further two falls on her final discipline, the beam, meant Downie finished with 53.775 - the same score as in qualifying and 1.23 less than the tally which earned her 11th place at April's European Championships in Milan.

But the 17-year old insisted she would not take the result to heart and would take plenty of positives from her experience at the O2.

"It just wasn't meant to be for me today," said Downie. "I did my best and it didn't quite come off but I've got plenty more opportunities to come.

"It's better for something like this to happen now than to hurt my confidence closer to 2012.

"I'm definitely taking lots of positives from the competition because there were lots of things I did well. The pressure got to everyone here and it was reassuring to see lots of other people falling - at least it wasn't just me.

"It's hard to perform in situations like this and my experiences this week will only help for next time. I've definitely got a long way to go but I'm getting there."

The o2 had a sell-out crowd for the first time all week and the British champion must have felt a chill to hear the huge cheers which greeted her first appearance - the floor.

But if the teenager was nervous, she showed no sign of it as she completed a strong routine to score 13.525, placing her 13th after the first apparatus.

The youngster's vault was then greeted by more rapture as Downie once again eclipsed her qualifying score on with a 14.5 vault to move ninth on 28.025.

Although the top five were quickly pulling away from the field, Downie was only 0.3 points away from sixth place at the half-way stage with the bars, traditionally the Brit‘s strongest apparatus, up next.

But tragedy struck early on as Downie, just like Tweddle in qualification, suffered an early fall costing her a vital mark which made a top five position nigh on impossible.

The Brit was clearly rattled and another two falls during her beam routine meant Downie finished with a disappointing 12.15 and slumped further down the leaderboard.

Fellow-Brit Becky Wing was in the same rotation as Downie but, despite outscoring her teammate in qualifying, the British all-around silver medallist finished 18th in the final.

A foul in the 17-year old's opening floor routine meant she was playing catch up for the remaining three apparatus although Wing made some amends on the vault, outscoring her qualifying effort with a 13.95 jump.

A 13.3 on the asymmetric bars was followed by a strong beam routine to earn Wing a total of 53.4 - 0.475 down on her qualification effort but not bad for her first major ch ampionship final.

And Wing admitted she was taking the competition as a first step on the road to 2012.

"I feel like it went okay for me this evening," said Wing. "I got better and better as I went on which is encouraging.

"It was pretty scary doing my beam routine at the end because, being the last competitor on the last apparatus, all the focus was on me but I think I did alright.

"I think I need to improve the difficulty of my routines for next time and that's definitely something I'll be working on for next season.

"It's hard with my height but I'm going to go back and work on some new routines because it would make such a difference to my final total."