GYMNAST Alice Kinsella admitted being speechless after helping Team GB win an unexpected bronze medal at the Olympic Games.

The 20-year-old, the daughter of Colchester United legend Mark and granddaughter of U’s stalwart and former vice-chairman and director John Schultz, was part of the women’s artistic team that defied the odds to claim third place in Tokyo.

Along with Amelie Morgan, 18, and 16-year-old twins Jennifer and Jessica Gadirova, the quartet looked out of contention at the halfway stage but fought back to claim Great Britain's first women's gymnastics team medal for 93 years.

The shock success was underpinned by a stellar performance from Kinsella - thrust into the role of the most experienced member of the team, having won an unexpected gold medal on beam in the European Championships in 2019.

Braintree and Witham Times: Great Britain's Alice Kinsella in action on the vault during the Women's Qualification Subdivision 2 in front of empty stands at the Ariake Gymnastic Centre on the second day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan. Picture date: Sunday July 25,

Alice Kinsella in action in Tokyo (above and below)

She put a tough individual qualifying session on Sunday behind her and it was her consistency, culminating in a crucial personal best score of 14.166 on the uneven bars, that helped move her team onto the podium by leapfrogging Italy.

Kinsella said: "I looked up and thought 'ok, we could potentially get a medal'.

"So I thought I'm going to go and do the best bar routine I could ever do, which I did.

"When we saw we'd come third we were speechless - I was on the floor, crying and everything.

Braintree and Witham Times: Great Britain's Alice Kinsella on the Balance Beam during the Women's Team Final at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre on the fourth day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan. Picture date: Tuesday July 27, 2021. PA Photo. See PA story OLYMPICS

"Our main aim was just to go out there and do better than qualification.

"We've proved to (our critics) that we're able to do it and we've come away with a bronze."

The quartet rose to the occasion in spectacular fashion to claim Great Britain's first women's team gymnastics medal since 1928.

Britain's women last won a medal in the Olympic team gymnastics event at the 1928 Games in the Netherlands.

Braintree and Witham Times: Great Britain's Alice Kinsella, Jennifer Gadirova, Jessica Gadirova and Amelie Morgan celebrate with their bronze medals after the Women's Team Final at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre on the fourth day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan.

Great Britain's Alice Kinsella, Jennifer Gadirova, Jessica Gadirova and Amelie Morgan celebrate winning bronze in Tokyo

Kinsella and Co looked odds on for a fifth-place finish heading into the last of the four rotations, which would have been enough to match the team's performance in Rio in 2016.

However, they eventually amassed 164.096 points at the shell-shocked Ariake Stadium.

The Russian Olympic Committee team won gold, with silver going to the United States.

A strong competitor across all apparatus as showcased by her top-12 finish at the 2019 World Championships, Kinsella is the most experienced gymnast in the women’s team.

Her greatest success has come on the beam, though, winning European gold in 2019 - a triumph Kinsella insists has only made her more determined to make her mark on the global stage.

The Basildon-born gymnast is the sister of Walsall footballer Liam Kinsella.

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