04/10/13: Great Britain’s Ruby Harrold and placed 17th and 19th in the women’s all-around final at the 2013 Artistic World Championship in . Both girls, competing in their first World Championships, were hampered by problems on beam early on in a competition that was won by American Simone Biles (60.212) from teammate Kyla Ross (59.332) with Russia’s taking the bronze (58.856).

The British girls were in the same group and began on the beam. Rebecca had a long wait on the podium to begin her routine, starting with round-off straight she couldn’t quite stick the landing and fell; a good double pike dismount scored her 11.966. Ruby followed up and unfortunately also had difficulties, her flick layout was out of line and she couldn't hold on and with another fall on her change ring she scored 11.066.

On the floor Rebecca stepped out on the first of her explosive tumbles but fought back beautifully to perfectly stick her remaining passes ending with double pike and scoring 13.000. Ruby produced an outstanding floor routine, the huge crowd clapping her along, she landed each of her tumbles dead to score her an impressive 13.700. On vault both girls performed the double twisting Yurchenko, Rebecca landing perfectly to score 14.866 and Ruby, with a small pace back scored 13.900.

Finally on bars, Rebecca Tunney started off well but couldn’t quite make it over giant half and fell, she jumped back up to finish strongly for 13.033 and a total of 52.865. Ruby, who competes in tomorrow’s bars final, produced a good final routine with her unique combination of skills well appreciated by the packed crowd she scored 14.533 for an all- around 53.199.

Rebecca said afterwards “I’m disappointed but it’s my first World Championship and the first of the Olympic cycle so I’ll pick myself up and work hard in the gym. It’s an amazing experience to be part of the British team at a World Championships and I’m looking forward to supporting the rest of the team in the finals over the weekend.”

Ruby: “Today wasn’t the best competition for me but to be in a World final is already a huge achievement and I still have bars to compete tomorrow so I need to remain positive

and look forward to that. To make two finals in my first Worlds is great and I’m hoping to end on a high in tomorrow’s bar final”

The competition continues on Saturday with the first day of apparatus finals, Max Whitlock compotes on pommel, Daniel Purvis on floor and Ruby and Becky Downie on bars.

British gymnastics fans can now look forward to the FIG World Cup visiting Glasgow on December 7th as the top 8 finishers from this World Championships are invited to compete on the World Cup circuit.

All-around results

1 BILES Simone USA 60.216

2 ROSS Kyla USA 59.332

3 MUSTAFINA Aliya RUS 58.856

4 IORDACHE Larisa Andreea ROU 57.766

5 CHN 57.632

6 FERRARI Vanessa ITA 56.732

7 STEINGRUBER Giulia SUI 56.699

8 SHANG Chunsong CHN 56.132