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Jordan was born March 21 1993 in Fife, Scotland. She started gymnastics at the age of 5 ½, after her parents noticed that she was "always upside down with her bottom in the air and swinging from the furniture". To get rid of some of her excess energy, Jordan was signed up for classes at Levenmouth GC, where her first coach was Bill Don. The youngster soon began to show considerable talent for the sport and won a place in the Fife development squad. Shortly afterwards, her parents moved to Nottingham for work, and the young gymnast joined the top-rated Notts GC where she has continued to develop her skills under the guidance of coaches Claire Starkey and Ian Kime. Between the ages of 4 and 9 Jordan did dancing in addition to gymnastics, but gave up this hobby to focus on her commitments in the gym. She currently trains 26 hours a week with the Notts elite squad in addition to the regional and national squad sessions she is required to attend.
Jordan enjoyed great success throughout her time as an age group gymnast. She won the county and regional championships for three years in a row and was runner-up at the British Age Group championships in 2003. That same year, as a 10-year-old, Jordan was called up to the Scottish senior team and helped Scotland to team gold at the Northern European Championships. She finished the year by winning team gold with Notts at the Coupe Avenir in Belgium. In 2004 Jordan was part of the Notts teams that took gold at the British Schools championships as well as club internationals in Slovenia and Belgium. She took individual AA silver at the Coupe Avenir and placed 2nd at Compulsory level 2, but was very unhappy with her eventual 4th place finish in the level 2 national championships. Determined to put this disappointment behind her, Jordan became the individual Celtic Cup junior champion in 2005. She was runner-up at the British Schools and a key factor in the astonishing, silver medalling-winning performance of the young Notts team at the British Teams championships.
Jordan's favourite gymnasts are Romanians Andreea Raducan and Catalina Ponor. Her favourite piece of apparatus is bars, and her ambitions in the sport are to compete at the Commonwealth Games, World Championships and 2012 Olympics. Having already been selected to train with top international gymnasts at World Class Start camps in Deva (Romania) and Tata (Hungary), Jordan says she would love to go to the United States for a training camp with some of the great USA gymnasts: "I love meeting new people and travelling to foreign countries and seeing how other gymnasts train". After she has finished her gymnastics career in Great Britain, Jordan plans to attend an American university on a sports scholarship and take part in the NCAA championships.
Jordan has one younger sister, Amber, 8. In her spare time she enjoys shopping, watching TV and music. Her favourite things include the TV show Friends, Jacqueline Wilson books, pasta, cooking and science lessons at school. She also loves to go on holiday to the South of France and is looking forward to practicing her French this year as well as shopping in St Tropez: "I just love clothes," she says! Jordan lists her dislikes as celery and green beans as well as show offs and bullies.
Alongside her natural talent for gymnastics, Jordan boasts great determination to succeed, and demands very high standards of herself in the gym: "I always like to give 100% and am really hard on myself when I do not do as well as I should". With such a committed and hard-working approach to gymnastics, Jordan is poised for great success over the coming years.
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