91Èȱ¬

He Kexin can barely speak through the sobbing.

The tiny 18-year-old, barely the 4ft 9in listed in her profile, is cloistered by two-dozen Chinese reporters in a large, rectangular basement a stone's throw from the main arena at the in Rotterdam.

He, the at Beijing 2008 and possessor of the most technically challenging routine in the world, fell spectacularly from the bars minutes earlier - as did her young team-mate, Huang Qiushuang.

The pair have watched , and must now face the media and the consequences in a featureless room. A day later it will be their coach, Lu Shanzhen, standing here under the spotlight of Chinese state television, China's women having ended a World Championships without a gold medal for the first time since 2002.

As He's tears flow and the teenager forlornly fights for air beneath a carpet of faces and dictaphones, a journalist from another organisation turns to me and says: "Can you imagine what she's going to face back home?"

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Britain's gymnasts may have produced a public display of Olympic intent during a medal-packed weekend at the World Championships in Rotterdam, but the secrets they are keeping will prove the difference in 2012.

, silver for Louis Smith and bronze for Dan Purvis rounded off the latest in a string of competitions which have obliged journalists to stick the word "unprecedented" in their reports.

That's on top of an in 2008 - Britain's first gymnastics medal at a Games since the 1920s - and a year later, alongside world silver for Daniel Keatings, who didn't even compete in the Netherlands this year through injury. These are heights Britain has never hit before, nor even come close.

Keatings watched from the 91Èȱ¬ studio, sending the sound man's dials to 11 as he roared "Go on Louis!" and "Oh my God, Dan!" as his team-mates went about the business of winning medals in his absence. Such is the strength and depth of the British operation now.

What promised to be a tough test for Britain - a World Championships away from home (unlike last year's in London), minus Keatings and with added expectation following previous successes - ended in one frantic day of medals.

Despite that success, the week has to be looked at in context. In the team event, Britain's men and women , an indication that none of the usual medal-winning hyperbole will mask the fact there are still better countries out there.

So what happens next? How do the Brits sort that out? The answer is, you're not allowed to find out. Because Britain's gymnasts are keeping secrets that they'll only reveal in 2012.

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Unable to walk for months, bedridden and fitfully reliving the Olympic pinnacle of her short career, gymnastics offered little to Imogen Cairns.

Having and competed for Britain, the Westcountry teenager "snapped both legs" - in her own words - at her next event, a nothing competition where she planned to practise new routines.

The injury put her out of gymnastics for more than a year, a tragedy for a girl who left home at the age of 14 for the sport. While others began to target the London Olympics she lay in bed and put on weight, relying on friends to bring food up the stairs.

So how did Cairns, now 21, fight back to and elbow her way into the British team for this week's World Championships in Rotterdam?

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The news that London had beaten off the likes of Spain and Paris to might have led some British sportsmen and women to believe that the build-up to a Games on home soil would have plenty of positives.

Access to your own facilities, going home to your own bed at night, perhaps training at a one of the many Olympic venues - these are all the benefits that should come with hosting the biggest sporting event there is.

But the reality is far different. A sizeable number of British competitors at London 2012 will have spent the years leading up to the Games honing their skills and eking out a living in almost any nation except their own.

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