‘It feels like I’m flying’: gymnast Alice Kinsella on conquering self-doubt

T he balance beam is the destroyer of dreams. It exposes tension and nerves like no other apparatus, provoking falls from its knife-edge surface. For many years it betrayed British gymnasts in high pressure moments, but now they are increasingly at ease on it.

They are also, at times, even spectacular. Few routines in GB’s programme are as satisfying as the daring combination executed by Alice Kinsella on the beam. Early in her display, Kinsella launches herself into a no-hands cartwheel, which she immediately follows with two consecutive back somersaults with her body in a straight position.

The series of skills is dynamic and fast, sending Kinsella from one end of the beam right to the edge of the other in a flash It never fails to elicit cheers from the crowd. When all goes well, she loves it.

“It just feels like I’m flying,” says Kinsella, smiling, in an interview at Great Britain’s gymnastics training hall in Lilleshall, Shropshire. “I don’t put my hands down at all.”

Over the years, though, Kinsella has fallen many times. It has happened on this particular routine, where if you are off-line on the cartwheel, you are finished. It has taken time for Kinsella – a key part of the British team at the European Championships in Antalya, Turkey, which begin on Tuesday – to become one of the most important British gymnasts of her generation.

Gradually, Kinsella has become the nucleus of the GB women’s team as they have repeatedly made history. When the team won a shock bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics, GB’s first women’s team medal since 1928, she was captain. She also led the group to a historic silver medal at the World Championships in Liverpool last year. Kinsella is the only gymnast who performed in all four events