31/7/12- North Greenwich Arena: The GBR women’s artistic team of Hannah Whelan, Imogen Cairns, Beth Tweddle, Rebecca Tunney and Jennifer Pinches finished 6th in the women's team final, their best position since the bronze medal of 1928.

The GBR girls started off with a shaky beam after a fall from Pinches and a few uncharacteristic errors from Whelan but as they moved on to their next piece of apparatus it was clear they were determined to put this behind them. On the floor Pinches, Whelan and Tweddle produced solid routines to push the team from eighth up to seventh, which helped regain their confidence. This form continued on vault and bars, where we saw a strongly executed routine from Tweddle to finish off GBRs campaign with a huge 15.833 to take the team up into 6th place for the finish.

The Olympic Champions in the end were the USA who gave a faultless performance to deservedly take the gold. They had been in close contention with Russia but as both teams entered their final piece, the floor, Russia could not hold themselves together and had to count several major errors. Nonetheless the Russian team ended up with silver, with a strong Romanian team finishing in bronze.

Beth Tweddle MBE: "You can't be disappointed, obviously we've dropped from qualifying but it's not a major disappointment. Four years ago we didn't make the final, at least we've made strides in the past four years. We came in knowing the four powerhouses were fighting for the medals and we were fighting with the other countries.”

Rebecca Tunney: "First Olympic Games and we're getting into the team final and finishing sixth, you can't ask for anything bigger. It was inspiring to see the men get a medal. They did their best yesterday and so did we, even though we didn't medal."

GB RESULTS
TOTAL- 170.495(6th)

Vault – Team total 43.965 (6th)
Cairns- 14.266
Pinches- 14.833
Tunney- 14.866

Bars – Team total 44.599 (4th)
Whelan- 14.000
Tunney- 14.766
Tweddle- 15.833

Beam- Team total 39.199 (8th)
Cairns- 13.500
Pinches- 11.833
Whelan- 13.866

Floor- Team total 42.732 (4th)
Pinches- 14.366
Whelan- 14.200
Tweddle- 14.166

For the full results, please click here.

The GB women are next in action when Hannah Whelan and Rebecca Tunney compete in the indiviudal all-around final on Thursday (2nd August). Tomorrow (1st Aug) will see Britain's Daniel Purvis and Kristian Thomas take the stage in their individual all-around final beginning at 4.30pm.