Frankie Jones

She may have been born in Kettering, but with a name like Jones, and a family from Neath, there was never any likelihood of Francesca ‘Frankie’ Jones competing for anyone other than Wales. And what a return she gave to the land of her fathers’ as she won six Commonwealth silver medals and one priceless gold in rhythmic gymnastics.

These days, even though she is still only 24, she is a student at Cardiff Met and is learning her trade as a coach. But her legacy lives on and the waiting lists at so many gymnastics clubs around Wales are largely down to the way in which she captured the hearts and imagination of a nation at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. She was already the pin-up girl of her sport, having won six British titles and competed at three World Championships, four European Championships and the 2012 London Olympics, but she returned from Scotland as the new Queen of Welsh sport.

As well as her record haul of medals from Glasgow – gold in the ribbon and silvers in the team, all-around, hoop, ribbon and clubs events – she also returned with the David Dixon award. Named after the former long-serving secretary of the Commonwealth Games Federation, the award goes to a single athlete at each Games based on their overall performance, contribution to their team and commitment to fair play. She became the first athlete from one of the Home Nations to win the prize.

But not everything has been plain sailing in a career that only began to take off when she was taken onto the national training programme at Lillehsall at the third attempt. She was 13 at the time and seemed to have to work much harder than her naturally more co-ordinated and supple colleague.

In fact, Jones’s whole career was a struggle for survival, a battle against lack of funds, against her body and, by her own admission, against a sport for which her passion seemed for so long greater than her talent.
Her silver medal for Wales in Delhi in 2010 primed her for the London Olympics, but she dropped the ball – literally – and ended up last. It could have been the end of it all there and then, but Sport Wales demanded a fairy tale ending in Glasgow. They converted a warehouse in Cardiff into a training centre, assigned physios, coaches and all kinds of other therapists to get her into peak condition.

From the moment she proudly walked at the head of Team Wales carrying the national flag at the opening ceremony you sensed something special was in the offing. Five silver medals behind the brilliant Canadian Patricia Bezzoubenko was a rich enough return, but Frankie had set her heart on gold. And so she came into the last event of her illustrious career, the ribbon – the event in which she had got her apparatus knotted at the British championships earlier in the year and lost her title to Welsh team mate Laura Halford.

Was it the performance of her life? Well, it was good enough to win gold and beat Bezzoubenko into second place. What an ending . . .what a career!

Francesca Jones (Gymnast) Born in Kettering on 9 November 1990