I flippin’ love gymnastics! And this year, I’ve been very lucky to see some of the best gymnasts in the world in action, thanks to the Commonwealth Games being held in the UK and the World Championships in the Netherlands.

So first up was the Commonwealth Games, where we saw both the Men’s and Women’s all-around finals. It was nice to be able to nip over on the train to Glasgow just for the day because it’s so close by. The fun thing about the CWG is that GB is split out into the individual nations, so we were able to properly be Team Scotland.

The afternoon watching MAG was so exciting! A lot of the main contenders had a few mistakes or falls in the first couple rotations and then fought amazing comeback games. But most excitingly is that Scottish gymnast Reuben Ward was having a very steady competition and about halfway through was at the top of the leaderboard, so we were just praying he could hold his spot. It was an absolute thrill to cheer for a Scotsman and an even bigger thrill to realise he has won the gold. I got a bit choked up hearing Flower of Scotland playing during the medal ceremony because that’s not something I ever thought I’d get to experience in my favourite sport. Though it was just his senior debut, Reuben immediately shot up as one of my new favourite gymnasts.

We took a wee break and had a delicious lunch/dinner at Celino’s before heading back to the arena for the Women’s competition. There were fewer familiar faces overall in this competition for us, but still some all-time favourites, like seeing Canada’s Ellie Black take another AA gold. We had a great day and headed back home to Edinburgh a little weak of voice but very satisfied.

Then we amped things up a bit and flew to the Netherlands to see the World Championships in Rotterdam. We had tickets for the Women’s all-around again and also all of the event finals for both men and women.

It was cool to visit Rotterdam, a city I probably wouldn’t have gone to otherwise. We had a nice time wandering around, eating pastries and having lovely dinners between watching gymnastics. Big shout-out to the best pastries and coffee from Harvest Cafe – we’ll be thinking about them for quite a while…

The Ahoy Arena was great; wherever we sat, we had a great view and never felt too far from the action. There was an exhibition hall where kids were flipping around on the mats; we browsed leotards and picked ourselves up a wee Miffy mascot from the merch stand. I also appreciated that there were some decent concessions available – one day we got crepes and another day we picked up a salad for lunch – a lot better options than we would have had in a stadium back home.

The competition was incredible – I think our main highlights were seeing Alice Kinsella back on the floor having the best time, watching the Rebeca Andrade going anything at all, witnessing Jake Jarman do a huge vault right in front of us, noticing Claire Pease constantly running around to stay warm during the whole competition, the Colombian gymnasts making big swings, and seeing the most amazing apparatus workers performing perfectly like Kaylia Nemour on uneven bars and Zou Jingyuan on parallel bars.

I feel really grateful to have shared both of these experiences with my pal Emma, who loves and is obsessed with gymnastics as much as I am. It was so cool to be able to attend these events and dive deep into our favourite sport.

I feel especially lucky this year because I also had the opportunity to see my other favourite sport (figure skating) live for the first time. 2026 has been the year of sport! In my world, anyway!