Claudia Fragapane has scent of success again ahead of 2016 European Gymnastics Championships

Beaming: Claudio Fragapane on her favourite piece of apparatus
Alex Livesey/Getty Images

It’s the smell of feet that first hits you in the gym in an unassuming suburb of Bristol where Claudia Fragapane trains. It is a scene of organised chaos: hosting ­children’s parties downstairs at the weekends, with a kids’ gym on the floor above, where the youngsters run riot.

A small framed article about Fragapane is a nod to Britain’s leading female gymnast, the four-time ­Commonwealth champion, a world and European medallist. And hidden away on the top floor is the gym and a new £30,000 floor to replicate the one in Rio where she hopes all her practice will pay off.

Having first entered Hawks Gym as a six-year-old, 12 years on she says she has become immune to its distinctive odours.

Fragapane is a bundle of positivity ahead of the European Championships and is described by her British Gymnastics team-mates as “the joker” of the group in the best era that the sport has known in this country

“We’re better than some other countries because we fight,” says the 18-year-old, who competes in Switzerland tomorrow. “And it’s a very team job. We all feel for each other if one of us falls. It’s hard because even if you see a team-mate fall, you feel like you’re falling as well.”

"I’d overhear the coaches saying ‘she’s good’ about someone and, even aged six, I wanted to be better"

&#13; <p>Claudia Fragapane</p>&#13;

As a team, their prospects are good going into the Europeans but ­expectation has risen off the back of their historic bronze at last year’s World Championships, Britain’s first team medal in the history of the ­competition.

Fragapane is a contagious personality, first announcing herself globally with a quartet of titles at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow two years ago.

“I remember they just kept coming: one, two, three, four,” she recalls. “What was even more special was that I didn’t expect it at all. I was buzzing the whole time.”

Her medals are the first thing that greet her each morning, laid out on her table “so every time I wake up I can see them”. Downstairs at the ­family home, there is a separate room for all her trophies, and her four ­sisters like to joke she is her parents’ “favourite”.

All of those awards stem from her parents’ ­decision to tire out their energetic daughter rather than let her swing off the door at home repeatedly and throw her younger sister in the air.

Taking up gymnastics did the trick but it also happened that of the ­Fragapane sisters, Claudia proved both the most gifted but also the more determined.

“From the start I loved being competitive,” says Fragapane, a dyslexic who struggled at school, with gym proving her refuge. “I remember I’d overhear the coaches saying ‘she’s good’ about someone else and, even at six, I wanted to be better than that person. It was never like ‘I want you to fall’, actually, I loved them doing their best — but me doing better and beating them.”

Confidence in her ability has never been an issue. By her own admission, there is never any doubt in her mind as she approaches each piece of ­apparatus.

“You can never hope you’re going to get through okay — that’s when you make a mistake,” she says. “Take the worlds, for example. When I got on that beam, I just knew I would stick. I’d fallen in qualifying but I felt really in control. I knew it was on, the focus, the whereabouts of my body.”

Her beam routine is believed to be the most complex at the Europeans and, should she nail it — as she fully anticipates — what would be the ­sensation?

“I feel like I just want to scream out loud ‘yes, I’ve done it’,” she says. “I want to high-five all the judges,” she adds, laughing at the thought.

At the Europeans in Bern and the subsequent Olympics in Rio, first and foremost for Fragapane is the team goal.

“When I started gym, I always wanted to go to the Olympics, but it was just something I said,” she says. “I didn’t know how hard it was to get there. It’s getting closer and I can’t believe it’s nearly there.”

At London 2012, she watched — the most nervous she has ever been, with a blanket over her on the sofa at home — as Beth Tweddle picked up an ­individual bronze. Four years on, she knows there is a medal prospect ­herself.

“If I get the chance to get picked and compete in the team event, I’d love to get a medal,” she says. “If it happens and it’s our day, then great. If not, we go back home, work on it and try to improve for the next competition. This sport is very up and down.”

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