Join the Miguel Delaney team: Inside Football Get exclusive insights and behind-the scenes access to the Miguel Delaney: inside newsletter Football Join the Miguel Delaney Inside newsletter Football Abi’s medal around her collar is the first thing you see. The British gymnast speaks to The Independent over video call just a couple of days after winning her first world gong, a bronze in the floor exercise in October’s World Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia, and it’s clear the novelty hasn’t worn off. “It just feels a bit surreal, still,” The 17-year old smiles. “Every time I see it around, I just kind of put it on and look at it. I don’t think it’s really sunk in.”Does she wear it at home? “I have done a little bit, yeah,” She says it a bit sheepishly. “Sometimes I just randomly put it on and I’ll walk into my mum’s room and be like, ‘oh yeah!’ I guess it never gets old.”In fact, it’s likely to be a feeling the teenager from Paignton, Devon will have to get used to, having achieved a medal at her first senior world championships as well as qualifying for the all-around final, finishing a brilliant eighth out of 24 competitors. Despite Martin’s young age she is already one of the more senior members of GB’s fledgling squad, having gone to her first Olympics in Paris last year before even receiving her GCSE results. But in Jakarta she was something of a leader within the team – an experience which she says felt “a bit weird” – alongside 18-year-old Ruby Evans, who won silver on floor.Martin and teammate Shantae-Eve Amankwaah watched fellow Brits Jake Jarman and Luke Whitehouse pick up gold and silver in the men’s floor final the day before the women’s. “I don’t like just staying in the hotel and not doing much because I kind of overthink things, so I went and watched. Obviously watching them smash the floors and seeing them first and second on the podium was amazing, but I didn’t really think that me and Ruby would both be on that podium together again the next day. “When Jake had just won his floor medal, he was showing us and I was like, ‘oh, I want to win a world medal one day’. And then when I saw Jake the next day, he was like, ‘well that didn’t take very long, did it?’” Third-place qualifier Evans performed first in the final, with Martin – who qualified in sixth place – immediately after her, and both set the bar high. “Watching her hit her routine after all the hard work and training kind of spurred me on to do the same,” Martin says. And despite a nervy wait both held on to well-deserved podium spots, with only Japan’s Aiko Sugihara sneaking ahead, with a score of 13.833 to Evans’ 13.666 and Martin’s 13.466.“I watched Ruby first and cheered her on, and I kind of wasn’t expecting to be on the podium anyway, so I was just enjoying watching everyone else until it got down to the last two. I was still in third, and I was like, oh, okay, this is kind of stressful now because at that point it’s not in your hands. Waiting for that last score to come in was very nerve-wracking. We were all stood in a little circle, me, Ruby, the coaches and the physio, because we knew Ruby had a medal, but we didn’t know what colour.” The excitement when the final result was announced was out of this world. Open image in galleryMartin placed eighth in the final of the all-around competition, won by Angelina Melnikova. (REUTERS).“One of my main goals for this cycle leading up to the Olympics was to win a world medal,” She says. After doing that the first request, “I think my main goal now is to just see where this can take me. Winning this medal at my first worlds in only the start of the cycle, I think it will just give me that extra bit of confidence.”The competition was a challenge, but it made the experience even sweeter. She says: “It’s been a long, hard year with injuries and mental blocks, so I think walking away from worlds coming eighth in the all around and winning a medal is just insane, really.” After Paris Martin suffered injuries to both of her ankles, she was forced to take a six-month break. This coincided with persistent mental blockages, a problem that made headlines after Simone Biles revealed her experience. ‘twisties’ – when gymnasts lose their sense of space and perspective while they’re in the air, feeling out of control of their body and putting them at risk of injury – during the Tokyo Games.“I think the hardest part for me was coming back from the Olympics and having all the fire in my belly and ready to get back in the gym and do the upgrades, do the work on the execution, so I am amongst some of the top athletes,” Martin says “And then obviously to find out that I’ve got to have that time off, I think that was what I struggled with most.” The 17-year old was nervous after finishing second out of eight finalists at the floor final. (AP). She feels that the two issues are linked: she felt she had no other apparatus to practice safely on, but the uneven bars. “when you’re focusing on just one piece, it kind of affects how you think about everything,” She explains. “It just messed with me.”Martin appears to be wiser than she is, with a calm head and an optimistic outlook despite the difficult year that she had. “I think I learnt a lot during that time from both being injured and from the mental blocks,” She says. She posted on social media her experience and added, “At the time I didn’t really know what to think, like I didn’t know if it was normal or not. When I looked back and saw what Simone Biles spoke about, I think it made me realise that gymnasts don’t really know as much about mental blocks as people think. “You only really hear about it when you’re a younger athlete, so you don’t really think all these high-level gymnasts, who are winning all these medals, get mental blocks. I wanted all the younger gymnasts coming up, or even gymnasts that are my level now, just to know that it is okay.”open image in galleryMartin joined Japan’s Aiko Sugihara and teammate Ruby Evans on the podium, with both Brits becoming world medallists for the first time (REUTERS)It’s evident that Martin feels a responsibility that comes with being at the top of the sport. She is a role-model “does feel a bit strange,” She admits. “Sometimes I think I was literally looking up to these girls that I’m on a team with now.”In the early part of this year, while still unable to compete due to her ankle injury, she worked behind-the-scenes at British Nationals. One day she walked through the main spectators’ entrance rather than the gymnasts’ door. She laughs as she remembers: “I just got swarmed with gymnasts, I was literally circled, and I think then was kind of like ‘whoa, all these kids actually look up to me’. It just felt really special.” Martin’s rapid rise has left her with little time to process the enormity of her achievements. She ponders: “I think it took a while after the Olympics to for it to sink in that I was actually an Olympian and I actually did that, and I think it’ll kind of be the same after this Worlds.” With the four-year Olympiad still in its early stages she has plenty of time – but for onlookers, it’s clear that a new star of British gymnastics is on the scene.
2025-11-07 12:19:09
‘It feels a bit surreal still’: Teenage British gymnast Abi Martin on ‘insane’ world medal and stunning breakout year
