Just days after she sobbed with despair after her fall from the asymmetric bars, Beth Tweddle experienced the opposite emotional extreme on Sunday as she produced the performance of her life in the floor exercise final to win the second world title of her career.
If this is the kind of human drama that lies in store when the London Olympics are staged in the same O2 Arena in three years' time, then we are all going to need a lot of handkerchiefs. Rarely can the lows and highs of sport have come in such quick succession.
Drawn first to go in! the eight-woman final, Tweddle put aside the trauma of her bars meltdown on Wednesday with a flawless tumbling routine, bristling with difficulty, which drew a roar of approval from the near-capacity crowd.
But the 24 year-old and her adoring fans then had to endure an agonising wait to see whether her score of 14.650 points would be enough to secure the gold, and the tension was heightened further when a neck injury to the second gymnast, Colombia's Jessica Gil Ortiz, brought a 10-minute delay to the competition.
But, one by one, her rivals came up short. Finally, with Tweddle pacing nervously up and down and staring up at the electronic scoreboard, the score of the last competitor, China's Deng Linlin, confirmed that the City of Liverpool gymnast had won, with Australia's Lauren Mitchell in second place and Sui Lu third. Tweddle raced towards her coach, Amanda Kirby, for a celebratory hug.
! Her triumph came three years after she first announced herself! as the greatest British gymnast of all time when she won the asymmetric bars world title in Aarhus, Denmark.
But, if anything, Sunday's win was an even greater achievement. The bars have always been considered her speciality, despite winning the European floor title in April, and she was delighted to prove that she was no just a "one-piece gymnast".
"Obviously winning the bars title in 2006 was really good but, with it being on home ground and not in my signature event, it is probably my best ever achievement," she said.
Her victory also says much about her mental resilience after her tearful exit from the bars qualification round when she failed to execute her trademark 'Tweddle' skill and was sent crashing to the mat.
She said it was the reaction of the London fans that helped her psychological recovery and made her realise that there was still everything to play for.
"On Wednesday I went out into the exit! and there were little kids just swarming around asking for autographs and it was them who really pulled me up and made me realise I still had that floor final to look forward to," she said.
Tweddle's win meant Britain finished the World Championships with two medals following the all-around silver won by Daniel Keatings on Thursday.
Louis Smith, the Olympic bronze medallist, failed to add to the GB tally after he fell from the pommel horse in Saturday's final and finished eighth.
Tweddle has yet to commit herself to competing at the London Olympics, when she will be a grand old lady in gymnastic terms, though the "fantastic" experience of competing in front of a home crowd on Sunday could well persuade her to put aside thoughts of retirement.
She said: "Normally when you go away there are a couple of GB flags, and that will me my mum and dad or someone else's mum and dad, so to hear the whole arena shouting ! for you is just the best feeling."
