Tweddle decides to fight on after narrowly missing out on a medal

Could Tweddle medal? No, but Britain’s best-known gymnast dropped her plan to retire after finishing an agonisingly close fourth in the uneven bars.

A spectacular routine from Beth Tweddle at the National Indoor Stadium was marred by a dismount stumble, but Britain’s first gymnastics world champion was sufficiently encouraged by her near-miss to stay in the sport until London 2012.

So close: Tweddle narrowly missed out on a medal in the uneven bars final

After Louis Smith’s bronze in the men’s pommel horse on Sunday, hopes were high that Tweddle, 23, could win Britain’s first women’s gymnastics gong.

She chose a risky and acrobatic programme of leaps and twists to record the highest score in the most difficult A-category, but staggered on landing and was awarded 16.625 — just 0.025 behind China’s bronze medallist Yang Yilin.

Another home gymnast, He Kexin, 16, won gold, with the American all-around champion Nastia Liukin taking silver.

Liukin is chasing her father/coach Valeri’s Olympic record of two golds and two silvers for the former Soviet Union, and has two more chances to become the best gymnast in her house.

Tweddle said: ‘It was a good result so I’m not disappointed with my fourth. My dream has been to be in the final, so now I’ll have to leave it until London in 2012 to get a medal.’

Asked why she chose such an eye-catching routine, Tweddle said: ‘Because I had nothing to lose. I qualified for this final in last place so I just had to go out there and do it.’

Tweddle became the first British woman to win gold at a world championships. That victory, in Denmark in 2006, helped her to third in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year poll. But her Olympic career is less distinguished. In Athens four years ago she was 19th in the all-around and 10th in the uneven bars.

Her c.v. is a litany of injuries, and she was labouring to overcome infirmity when the British team were at their Games training camp in Macau. From the unlikely setting of a gym in Liverpool’s Toxteth, she has kept British gymnastics going through some lean times. London now offers her one last shot at Olympic glory.