Havant teen gymnast shocks the world to become a double world champion in tumbling

Comfort Yeates, a 17-year-old British gymnast from Emsworth, has won an individual gold medal and women’s team gold medal to become tumbling world champion in Sofia, Bulgaria last week.

The Havant College student stunned crowds with her spectacular performance at the Trampoline, Tumbling and DMT World Championships 2022.

Comfort was originally a reserve in the women’s senior British squad of four gymnasts but went on to take the gold medal in the individual category. The senior women’s team also won gold, so Comfort now has two world championship titles to her name. The teenager said she was glad of the opportunity and enjoying the experience that gave her confidence with her fellow British gymnasts.

It was doubly exciting as the women and men’s teams won gold and crowned World champions too.

She said: ‘There are literally no words for it. It’s been a dream since I can remember. It hasn’t quite sunk in yet but it feels amazing. This is what I’ve been working for my entire life.

‘I was very scared as I was doing runs that I hadn’t competed before on a move that I particularly find scary. At the top of the track, I was thinking if I’m ever going to do it, it has to be now. I pretend that I’m back at my home club not in a different country, or a different track and my coach is there.

‘I think about the run up and focus on putting as much power into it as possible. We are judged on an execution score and a difficulty score. Execution score is how tidy you are and your difficulty score is how hard your run is and then they combine those scores.’

Comfort has been travelling to her tumbling club for 6 years in Andover four times a week with her mum, Annie Yeates, who is a gymnastic teacher, having to drive over an hour each way.

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Paddy Lavelle, director of coaching at Andover Gymnastic club and head coach of England Tumbling, said: ‘It is completing eight gymnastic skills, usually somersaults down a 25.2 metre carbon fibre track. Think of it as the 100 meters of gymnastics. The whole thing is done in six seconds.

‘A good gymnast can go 25 meters in four seconds while doing eight skills, that’s turning upside down, a minimum of eight times doing as many skills as you dare. The level Comfort is operating at she needs to do a minimum of two skills along with six linking skills.

‘In her final run at the world championships, she did a round off flick, full twisting double straight, three whipped flick, double pike. She won with her reserve run. How she did that is something half the world is wondering. She is great to coach very quiet and very focused.’

Britain took three world tumbling championship titles and a silver medal. The men’s team took gold and both teams will be attending the BBC Sports Personality of the year awards in December in Manchester.

Next year the world championships are taking place in Birmingham.