RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS: Francesca's Olympic waiting game continues (From Wiltshire Times)

RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS: Francesca's Olympic waiting game continues

5:00pm Friday 27th January 2012 in Sport By Dan Barnes

HILPERTON rhythmic gymnast Francesca Fox is still left in the lurch as she faces an agonising wait to find out if her Great Britain group will realise their Olympic dream.

The GB Rhythmic Group have launched an appeal to British Gymnastics against the decision not to nominate them for the host place at London 2012, with the team initially failing to meet the self-imposed qualifying mark by just 0.273 before beating the required score just a day later at last week’s London Prepares Test Event.

Fox’s self-funded group have highlighted ambiguity over which days of the test competition counted towards their benchmark score as part of their appeal but the 19-year-old is just hoping that her excruciating wait will end next week.

“We’ve just been put on the spot and it’s so hard for us because we don’t know what we’re going to do,” said Fox.

“We checked the rulebook because we didn’t want to put a foot wrong and we had to appeal within three days of the competition, which we did, and then they’ve got five days to decide and another five to tell us. Hopefully that’s all it will take.

“It’s been hard on the emotions and we’ve been to see the psychologists at Bath (where the group train).

“We’re having to look at getting part-time jobs if we want to carry on training.”