Interviewing Imogen Cairns

The Team GB Vault specialist is back from injury and chasing a place at the London 2012 Games

Three time Commonwealth Games gold medallist Imogen Cairns talks about recovering from serious injury and her hopes for the 2012 Games

1. How did you get into gymnastics?

When I was five or six my first sport was squash because my dad played it. One of my friends started gymnastics and as the club was near home I went too.

I was around six years old at the time.

3. You are now one of the senior members of the team. Do you feel an extra responsibility to pass on advise to the younger gymnasts?

At 22, I'm not quite the oldest. I've come through a generation of gymnasts and many have now dropped out of the sport so that is quite sad. It is not so much advice, but I think younger gymnasts can draw from my experience and I can tell them what to expect.

5. Did you have any vaulting idols when you were younger?

I remember watching Monica Rosu of Romania. She was the Olympic womens Vault champion at the Athens 2004 Games. She was amazing as she was doing the kind of vaults the top women are doing today.

6. You suffered an injury after the Beijing Games and were out of the sport for almost two years. What happened?

It was the worst injury of my career. I was on a real high after Beijing and my national coach said there was a Grand Prix event coming up to prepare for. I decided to enter a local competition before the Grand Prix and during the warm-up for the floor competition I landed really awkwardly on both ankles. The bones didn't snap but everything else did like the tendons and ligaments.

7. What was the rehab like?

It was awful. I couldn't walk for six weeks and I had to have meals delivered to my room. To be injured in one leg you can almost deal with but to have two injured legs ... the only way I could get around was to crawl and I could barely do that. I didn't go to the gym club for 18 months and my surgeon said I probably wouldn't be able to gymnastics again. I don't know why but I didn't really believe him. I have dedicated myself to gymnastics all my life and I wanted one more shot at it.