There is a game on Beth Tweddle’s official website in which visitors are challenged to uncover 36 blocks by matching 18 random pictures of the gymnast in as fast a time as possible. I managed it in four minutes, ten seconds, which is a lot longer than her hopes of victory lasted at the National Indoor Stadium.

Tweddle, the 2006 world and European champion, put in a near-faultless display in the final of the uneven bars. The trouble is near-faultless is not near enough and a spectacular series of swings, giant swings, circles and releases came to an unsteady end as the 23-year-old lost balance on her dismount.

It probably cost her the bronze medal, but Olympic contests are so tightly marked that it is difficult to tell. He Kexin, 16 going on 14 and already the nation’s favourite daughter after leading China to top honours in the women’s team event, pipped Nastia Liukin in the tie-break, despite both performing magnificently.

Twisting, turning, wrapping and flying like double-jointed monkeys on a day of high jinks, the pair looked - and indeed were - inseparable in the scoring stakes, recording 16.725 apiece.

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The result cast fresh controversy on the new gymnastics scoring system, under which the old “perfect ten” was replaced with two marks, the first out of ten for execution and the second reflecting the difficulty of the routine.

Instead of sharing gold, He and Liukin, of the United States, were subjected to a countback system in which the highest and lowest of the five judges’ marks are removed until a winner emerges - and it was the Chinese who grabbed the gold medal.

It is a system that has won few admirers in the sport thus far, although, given the IOC’s acceptance of He’s claim to be 16, the required minimum age for Olympic gymnasts - despite reports in the Beijing press last year that gave her age as 13 - maybe Tweddle is the gymnast with a more rightful reason to complain.

“I felt quite tall when I walked out next to the youngsters,” she said afterwards, which some might say is hardly surprising. “I was pleased just to be in the final. My dismount is normally not a problem, but I just didn’t get enough height and, to be honest, I thought I was going to end up on my face.” Good grace from Tweddle, then. A sense of balance. If only it had not deserted her at the crucial moment of competition.