'Doctors would swarm to resuscitate her' - Gauregui beats illness to claim GB spot

Olivia Gauregui has become the first Welsh gymnast to be picked by Great Britain for the TeamGym European Championships in Denmark next October.

The 14-year-old's feat is all the more remarkable as she has spent much of her childhood in and out of hospital.

Gauregui, from Newport, has battled both cancer and a life-threatening soya allergy.

"It means everything to me.... to be in the national squad is the best news I've had," she said.

TeamGym combines some of the traditional elements of gymnastics with dance moves and after her Great Britain call-up, Gauregui is delighted to have switched to the new discipline.

"It's a mix of floor, vault, trampette [a small square trampoline] and tumble," Gauregui explained.

"Trampette, vault and tumble is the more dynamic apparatus, while the floor is more of a performance [area], full of skills. I love dancing and throwing myself around in somersaults and hopefully landing on my feet at the end!

"I've been training really hard. I came from artistic gymnastics about a year ago.

"I just thought I'd do this discipline for fun and didn't think I'd get anywhere, but obviously I've come quite far."

'NHS were our heroes'

Gauregui has earned her GB spot after an early childhood played out to the backdrop of trips to and from the hospital.

Her mother Alyson explained: "She had a melanoma on her cheek. The cancer, the melanoma, is incredibly rare in children - especially as she was a baby.

"They eventually took off what they thought was a non-sinister lump because it was on her face. After removing more of the margin, it [the cancer] hadn't consumed her and their monitoring of her from that point onwards was just incredible.

"The NHS were our heroes. She was about nine years of age when she was finally cleared.

"She suffered at the time from another, fairly rare, allergy to soya. After touching or ingesting any tiny amount of soya, she would go flat and need resuscitating. So we had open access [to the doctors].

"We'd literally bundle her into a car, fly in [to hospital], straight through the doors - it was like something in a drama programme. The doctors would swarm around and try to get lines into any vein they could to resuscitate her. It was a scary, scary time.

"Thankfully when she got to the age of about 10, we finally got the news that she'd outgrown the soya [allergy].

"So although it still makes her ill if she still has too much of it in food - she'll be very sick and poorly for 24 hours, and it seems to happen every three months or so - it's not fatal now. It's not life-threatening any more. That's a huge relief, as you can imagine."

Gauregui's concerns now centre on whether the European Championships will still go ahead in October, with the coronavirus crisis leaving all sporting events in limbo.

"I really, really hope so. Fingers crossed," she said. "I never thought I'd do Team GB. I just thought I'd be a decent gymnast who'd train, get on with it and do the best I can. But to be a GB gymnast is just insane for me.

"At the moment we're having Zoom calls and follow a set [training] programme. There's a cardio session and some strength work and then a programme my mum sets. We work through it while she supervises.

"We do all we can. I just work on the things I can work on. Hopefully staying at the same level as I was from muscle memory. When I get back into the gym, which will hopefully be soon, I can work my way back to where I was."