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But Sey was also pushing her body – and mind – in disturbing ways far beyond her feats of athleticism. In a shocking new book, the former No. 1 gymnast in America has revealed the terrible regime of starvation and abuse that lay behind her achievements.Sey’s memoir has sent shock waves through the tightly knit world of top athletes, sparking controversy as the Beijing Olympics loom. She has detailed widespread eating disorders, coaches suspected of being sexually attracted to their young charges, and a brutal physical regime that leaves gymnasts crippled in later life and bearing psychological scars. She describes a sometimes hellish experience in which she ended up so obsessed with losing weight that she did not menstruate until she gave up gymnastics and turned 20. She was so addicted to laxatives that she once soiled herself in public. And the physical brutalities of her training and injuries left her years later with premature arthritis and permanently bruised feet and other physical problems.Now she hopes her book, Chalked Up, might serve as both a wake-up call to a sport that she says she still loves and a lesson to parents whose children enter the world of top athletics.

‘My interest was not to write just an exposé. This is my memoir of my experience … but there are certain policies that could be put in place that might encourage better behaviors in the sport,’ she told The Observer Sey won admiring headlines across America after she won the US National title in 1986. Her win had been all the more special as the year before she had suffered a horrific injury in a fall that snapped her femur. But just two years after her win, Sey went to college to pursue a non-sporting career.Now her book has explained that dramatic move. Her life as a competitive gymnast was one of seemingly unending competitive pressure that went far beyond the vault or the parallel bars. Most damaging was the constant pressure to lose weight put on the girls, many of whom were barely in their teens and often younger. Sey describes eating disorders being common and coaches humiliating their athletes by calling them fat. In one memorable scene a coach picks up a loudhailer and berates a young gymnast in public for putting on 2lb. ‘At this rate you’ll look like your mother in no time,’ the coach screams, as the mother watches in the crowd and does nothing to intervene. In another incident, Sey’s coach chastises her for eating a whole bagel for dinner. She also recounts filling coffee cups with spit every night to lose a few grams of ‘water weight’. She binges and purges food. Even now, two decades later, Sey still has nightmares about the ‘weigh in’ all gymnasts go through as part of training.But perhaps the most controversial part of the book are allegations that top coaches had unhealthy attractions towards the pre-pubescent girls who populate the sport. Those parts of the book have caused ructions in the gymnastic world, with Sey being both condemned and applauded for bringing the sport’s ‘dirty little secret’ into the open. ‘It is the exception not the rule, but it does exist,’ Sey said. But she added that the really shocking thing was the attitude of silence within the sport. ‘There are suspected improprieties, but no one is bothered to ask. No one wants to upset the apple cart,’ she said.Sey does not want her memoir to discourage anyone from entering gymnastics, which is the most popular sport in the Olympic Games. But she does want it to act as a sort of guide to the parents of those children who do succeed. ‘They need to pay attention to their children. Watch their mood and see if anything is wrong,’ she said.Sey is also reflective on a sport that is notoriously dominated by the very young. That means gymnasts who hit 20 are already veterans who have burnt out and have no future. Sey was just 16 years old when she won her US title. Yet even then she knew she was at a peak that she was unlikely ever to repeat. ‘That night I remember thinking: It’s all downhill from here,’ she said.That is an astonishing realization for a 16-year-old girl. But Sey, who is now a successful executive and mother of two children, has no real regrets about her gymnastic career. ‘Hardship makes you stronger. In the end I would not change anything, because it was my life and it made me what I am,’ she said. And she still relishes the memories of what being a top gymnast felt like; of being able to use your body to perform physical feats that others can only dream of. ‘I still miss it. I miss it every day,’ she said. “It feels like flying,” Beth Tweddle says softly as she looks at the strange apparatus waiting silently for her in a deserted gymnasium in Toxteth. The new world champion sits on the hard floor, ignoring the fact that she has a heavy cold and will soon face another seven-hour training slog with only a break for a meal when darkness falls on the streets outside. Her legs are crossed while her fingers trace the scars that zigzag an ankle operated on five times in the long quest which finally reached fruition last month on an unforgettable night in Denmark.Tweddle, a 21-year-old Liverpool student who really does look like she can fly as she spins and hurtles from one uneven bar to another in a display of strength and finesse far more dizzying than any wild night out on the town, became Britain’s first-ever world champion gymnast on October 20. Her achievement in winning gold on the asymmetric bars should soon see her catapulted from obscurity into the glaring limelight when she features in an otherwise meagre field of contenders for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year.Tweddle may be secretly fretting over what she should wear on the night but she also carries the conviction of a champion who knows her story is as gripping as anything else in British sport. Coming from a country devoid of any gymnastic heritage, while training relentlessly on her own in Toxteth, for six hours a day six days a week, she has risen to the peak of a sport traditionally dominated by state-backed programmes – from the old east European powerhouses, the United States or, now, China.”I’m a little different,” she says, “and so that’s why I like explaining to ordinary people, who know nothing about gymnastics, that on the bars it also feels like a rollercoaster – except you’re in control. If you’re on a rollercoaster at Alton Towers you haven’t a clue what’s coming next which is maybe what people think when watching me – is this the routine of her life or is she just gonna fall?”At the world championships Tweddle wrapped those contrasting fates into a 24-hour period which may end up changing her life. “After we’d finished 11th in the team competition, which made us happy, I started training by myself for the individual finals. It’s lonely but on the Thursday I got my turn on the [asymmetric] bars in the all-round final. And I fell! It was a shock but I got up and carried on – whereas normally I would’ve gone to pieces. I did a really good beam and floor and came eighth – even after that bad fall.”Last year Tweddle finished fourth in the all-round final. She had also previously won two world bronze medals. Most telling of all, in April, having just been cleared to compete after three months out with another serious ankle injury, she became European champion in the asymmetric bars. So six months later she knew, this time, she had a real chance of winning the world championship in her specialist discipline – as long as she could overcome the psychological impact of falling the night before.”There were eight of us in the final and you can either watch your rivals or warm up in the gym at the back. That’s what I did. I knew I was going to be seventh out while Anastasia Liukin [the defending champion from the United States] was second. So it was best to keep busy. I came out just before the Ukrainian who was up sixth and I saw her dismount and land. I was next.”The quiet intimacy of that moment creeps over her. She is no longer stretching her legs, flexing her toes like a dancer or fiddling with her mobile. Her stillness is absolute. “I sneaked a look at the scores and saw what Liukin had done. But it didn’t really help because I wasn’t sure if she’d done an excellent routine to score 16.05 or whether she’d messed up slightly. I just knew I had to do one of my best-ever routines.”I ask Tweddle what rushes through her head during the 30-second blur when she flies through her “routine” – a word which sums up both the grinding repetition of her training as well as conjuring up something more mysterious in the nerveless way she reels between the uneven bars in competition. “My body is on autopilot but I’m thinking constantly what Amanda [Kirby, her coach] shouts out thousands of times in the gym – like ‘fast handstands’ or ‘shoulders open’ or ‘feet across’.”As soon as I hit the floor I knew I’d done a good routine – I just didn’t know how good. But when the numbers came and my score was 16.2 I ran to Amanda. Only the Italian girl was left, [Vanessa] Ferrari, and she was a medal contender [who had won the all-round title]. But I knew she’d have to do the routine of her life if she was going to beat me. I waited and watched but I knew in the back of my mind I’d got it. And when it was over I was happier than I’d ever been.”Tweddle was training in Toxteth within five days of becoming world champion – and she returned to university in Liverpool even sooner. “People were surprised that I went straight back into uni on Monday morning – and I got given three assignments that day! But I’m not going to fail my degree.”She rolls her eyes when revealing the topic of her Sports Science dissertation. “It’s a bit of a mouthful but the official title is ‘Physiological & Anthropometrical Parameters In Elite & Non-Elite Gymnastics’. Basically it’s looking at body composition and power, strength and speed and the essential difference between gymnasts from the ages of 12 to 19.”Is she academically strong? “Yeah, I am,” she says casually. “But I work hard.”Tweddle, who likes films, going out with her friends and shopping (“especially shopping”), is so unaffected that it is easy to slip into some boyfriend talk. Does she even have time for one? “Oh yeah, but it all depends on when you start going out with them. If it’s the summer when there’s not so many competitions it lulls them into a false sense of security. I’ve been going out with this guy, Dave, for five months now and I’ve had to break it to him gently.”I was away for 2½ weeks for the world champs and then I came back for 10 days and then it’s been Milan and another trip next week. I’m then away from 10 to 23 December. There are so many times I just want to be with him but he understands – even though he works in an ordinary job. We’re always on the phone, texting, emailing, everything. When I became world champion he was watching me on TV and he was the first to phone me straight afterwards. And then everyone started calling him.”There must be a certain cool attached to having a world champion girlfriend. “Yeah,” she laughs, “I tell him that.”Her world championship exploits will be hailed by politicians and sports administrators in the coming weeks but two years ago, after she finished 13th at the Athens Olympics, missing out on the individual final by a fraction of a point, her lottery funding was slashed – as was the wider backing for her underfunded sport.”Mine got slashed quite a lot but I’m back up now on the A-funding category which is as high as lottery money goes. My parents used to have to support me but I’m OK now.” Tweddle downplays her struggle by pointing out that “football and cricket are the national sports.”The impact of the Sports Personality of the Year vote, however, could have hugely positive consequences. “Some people tell me I’m third favourite,” she says shyly, “and others say I’ve got no chance. But it would be great if I was even nominated in the top 10. It would be wonderful for gymnastics to get such exposure.”in the absence of millionaire footballers and famous cricketers, battered rugby players and lacklustre athletes, three contrasting women have emerged – with Zara Phillips and Nicole Cooke currently ahead of Tweddle. “We all come from sports that aren’t in the public eye but I’ve met Nicole and I know how hard she works as a cyclist. Some acknowledgement of that would be good.”The day after the BBC event, Tweddle flies to Brazil in an attempt to win the asymmetric bars in the World Cup – the next step towards her ambition of reaching Olympic glory in Beijing in 2008 with a final bow in the following year’s world championships in London. “I’ll be 24 then and pretty old – but it would be the perfect way to go out. But Brazil is all I’m focusing on at the minute because it’s another big deal.”

www.vergieconditioning.com Glenn Vergie discusses a near tragedy he witnessed in the gym. When a young man did not handle gym equipment safely, he almost was crushed by a weight that his body couldn’t handle. He had the potential for serious injury, he could have broken his back, and this could have been fatal. To make sure you, or your child are safe in the gym, 1) Educate yourself on weight lifting technique, understanding force and load make a huge difference, and lifting the appropriate weight for yourself will get you in shape faster and more safely than risking your body with training equipment that is too heavy. 2) Always have an experienced supervisor nearby in case comething goes wrong. It doesn’t matter if you’re a youth athlete or an elite athlete, if something goes wrong in the gym, your body is at risk, and potentially, all the sports and activities you love. 3) Make sure to always use the safety mechanisms, they are there for a reason, and they will save your life. Safety in the gym always comes first. Make sure you have an appropriate exercise plan to reduce the risk of injury and to prevent injury all together, remember, your body, fitness and health are what is at stake.
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