British gymnast announced her retirement at the age of 23 with strong accusations against coaches and the Federation

The last few years in Ellie Downie’s career—and in her life—were quite stormy. After a successful participation in her Olympic debut in Rio 2016 (13th all around), the young British woman positioned herself as one of the great gymnasts of the cycle that would end in Tokyo 2020, but which finally ended in 2021. In those years, Downie won an all-around European title, a competition always dominated by the powers of the East; and she added great performances in the jumping apparatus, where she became a bronze medalist at the 2019 Stuttgart World Cup.

Later came what we all know: pandemic, limitations to training, to compete and Games postponed. It was then that in mid-July 2020, Ellie and her sister and also international gymnast Becky decided to publish a  serious letter denouncing the British Federation’s training methods: “They required me on training campuses to lose 6 kilos in two weeks because otherwise there would be consequences,” Ellie wrote in that letter published on social media. The enormous number of confessions of this type forced the British Federation to undertake a profound reform and to undergo an audit, the results of which were published last June after 400 interviews with victims between 2008 and 2020, and which confirmed that the problems of physical and emotional abuse within gymnastics in Great Britain were “systemic”.

Already in 2021 and with the Olympic Games confirmed, the scenario in the British gymnastics team changed and new figures appeared, already eligible due to their age to participate in Tokyo. The internal competition to be part of the national quartet that would travel to Japan became very close and in the midst of those days of great pressure, Ellie´s brother died. It was a tragedy for which there are no words, since he collapsed in the middle of a cricket match. A few weeks later, Downie reported that she was getting off the road to Tokyo. There was no strength to continue: “When I arrived at the last test before Tokyo, I decided to give up. Nobody approached me, I sat on a bench crying, the coaches ignored me. I went home without anyone talking to me, it was absolutely heartbreaking,” she said this week in an interview with the BBC.

After several months of mourning, Downie made an effort to return to the international level by 2022, but she was not chosen to form the British team that would participate in the Liverpool World Cup and where they would finally qualify for Paris 2024. The decision to exclude her was questioned, as she met all the selection requirements. Downie said that not going to the World Cup made her feel “useless” and wondered if she was still being penalized for speaking out about abuse. “I just felt, will I ever be part of a team again? It was as if they were trying to exhaust me, and they finally did,” she said in another interview given this week on a podcast about mental health. 

As reported by the Selection Committee, Downie was not taken into account because she hadn’t competed in three years and that could lead to a nervous performance in the competition that they were going to seek to qualify for the next Olympic Games. “I lost control of my life. I couldn’t get out of bed, I stopped training and didn’t know how to move on. I tried to go to the gym a couple of times, but every day I would come in and cry,” she confessed in the long interview with Stompcast about those days after not being chosen to travel to the World Cup.

In the same episode, Downie detailed how much she was pressured by her weight and the distress they caused her when she told her that her ankle injuries (she has two surgeries) were the fault of the extra kilos: “I don’t have the biotype of other gymnasts, I’m bigger because that’s my body. I couldn’t reach the weight they wanted,” she explained. On the other hand, she criticized the British Federation’s latest decisions regarding the safety of gymnasts and stressed that the coach appointed to be in charge of the women’s national team “is the wrong person”. Finally, she said that she feels that there will be no real change until “athletes can speak without fear of repercussions.”

This is how a career ends too soon and too sadly. The European champion, two-time bronze medalist at world championships and Olympic finalist in Rio 2016, is leaving elite gymnastics after spending almost a decade as an important figure, as an athlete and as a reference: “With a heavy heart and a range of emotions, today is the day I announce my retirement from gymnastics,” she said to put an end to a sport she practiced during 20 of her 23 years of life.