Hucknall gymnastics star Becky Downie all set for European Games return

The 27-year-old has endured an injury-plagued two years which culminated in an operation on her ankle at the end of 2018.

But she’s now fit and raring to go having been selected to represent Team GB at the Euros which begin on June 21.

She told BBC Nottingham: “After the surgery I’ve had to get in some new skills and re-work my routines, including beam which I haven’t done for a long time so I’ve been trying to get some consistent and stable routines.

“It’s been a bit of a challenge but I feel I’m in a really good place now so I’m excited to compete.”

With the next Olympics just over a year away, Downie is hoping to use her Minsk experience as a stepping stone towards preparation for Tokyo.

She said: “I guess the main focus has been the world championships at the end of this year and then the long-term goal is the Tokyo Olympics next year, but having had the surgery I didn’t want to rush things and needed to take my time, so while I’m not putting out the final product at the moment, the European Games will be a big stepping stone.

“I’ll be doing a new routine; still a challenging one but I’m excited to give it a go. There’s one new skill in it but the rest are skills I’ve done before - it’s just been a completely new construction and one I think will work for me and that I can build on.

“It’s been really hard and for this cycle especially I feel like I’ve been injured for a lot of it, doing a lot of the training and the work but not much in the way of competition results.

“So I’m hoping this is the point all starts to come together for me - the worlds and the Olympics are the biggest goals but the European Games will be a really good competition to come back for.”