From first reserve to world champion: what a tumbling tale for Comfort

Tumbling is a gymnastics discipline in which participants perform a series of acrobatic skills down a 25m (82ft) sprung track.

Comfort Yeates, 17, started tumbling at age of ten. She goes to a club called the Salto Centre in Andover, an hour and a half’s drive from her home.

She qualified for the world championships last year in Baku, Azerbaijan, and notched a highly creditable third place.

This year Comfort came first in her national age group and third at the British championships, which meant she had qualified for the world age team at 17 to 21 years level, and she was put down as reserve for the senior world championships in Bulgaria.

One of the tumblers picked up an injury so Comfort was called up to take her place.

It was such an amazing opportunity with no expectations on her at all, with her being the youngest in the senior competition.

In Bulgaria, she contributed to the GB team getting gold – and then she became the individual world senior champion.

Mum Annie said: “It was so incredible – not bad for a reserve!

"It was amazing and really was a dream come true – Comfort has always had a dream to win the gold.

"Since coming home Comfort has been inundated with congratulations.

"Over the years she has had much support and funding from local businesses and friends, so this is a massive thank-you to all of them for believing in her.

"Comfort has been invited to the Sports Personality of the Year ceremony in Manchester so she is so looking forward to that.

"And she is hoping someone will be able to sponsor her gym.”

We now have a new way for people to contribute articles to our newspapers and website in Sussex.You can submit items directly into our system which can be immediately published after a review by editorial staff.

The link to register for the contributions to SussexWorld is at https://submit.nationalworld.com/?ref=SUWD