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Lisa Mason undoubtedly did a lot for the profile of British Gymnastics. In 1996, when Olympians Annika Reeder and Sonia Lawrence were resting after Atlanta, Lisa capitalized on their absence, winning the National title, at age 14. The following year, 1997, Lisa was still a year too young to compete as a senior under F.I.G standards, but that didn't stop her making her mark on the international scene. Lisa traveled to Romania to compete at the Romanian International and won the bars title...and a vacuum cleaner! She also went on to win her second National title in July. 1998 was when Lisa hit the senior scene, and the European Championships were a great place to start. She performed well in the qualifying rounds to make the All-Around final and the floor final. In the all-around nerves got the better of her and she placed 22nd. Competing against some of the best floor workers in the world such as Svetlana Khorkina and Simona Amānar, Lisa managed to keep nerves at bay this time and produced a fantastic routine. She placed fourth behind Khorkina, Corina Ungureanu and Amānar, but many believe that Lisa deserved the bronze, over Amānar. Later that year it was on to Kuala Lampur, Malaysia for the Commonwealth Games. Lisa was a key factor in the British team's victory over the Canadians for the silver medal behind Australia. A top contender for the AA gold, all did not go to plan and slight errors kept her just out of the medals in 4th place. Lisa made up for the though in the vault finals, winning gold ahead of the hot favourite, Australian Trudi McIntosh.
In 1999 Lisa got to compete in her first world championships, in China. Fighting for a team spot to Sydney, the British girls competed early on in the preliminaries and all they could do was sit back and wait to see if they had come in the top 12, and would make British history by sending a full team to Sydney. The news came late the next day, they had made it, and Lisa was well on her way to being an Olympian. By now Lisa had a lot of 'first British' titles, for example, she was the first Brit to ever win gold at a Grand Prix event. In 1998 she won the Cottbus floor title ahead of Russia's Yelena Produnova, and in Tianjin she earned the highest ever placing in the All-Around for a Brit and the World Championships, 14th. Lisa's lead up to Sydney was stressful, an elbow injury kept her out of the medals at the 2000 British Championships, and also kept her out of the Great Britain vs Belarus friendly match held outside London in July. The British team flew to Brisbane early to acclimatize to that Australian temperatures. Lisa was, of course, part of that team. The best gymnast ever from Great Britain, the British gym community had high hopes for Lisa. Could she qualify for the all-around? Well, she did that with ease. Coming 20th in prelims, Lisa easy qualified, and was so close to making the beam event final, missing out to Elise Ray from the USA by just .004. Ironically it was the British judges's score that put Elise ahead of Lisa! Not put off by this disapointment, Lisa performed well in the all around, and despite being one of the taller gymnasts, managed not to fall on vault, which was set too low! Unfortunately, British compatriot Annika Reeder was not so lucky. A back fall on her vault meant she had to pull out of the competition, a disapointing end to her career.
The reasons for Lisa's retirement in late 2000 are still unclear and surrounded by gossip and rumours. Talk of BAGA imposing a ban on Lisa for the remainder of 2000 for organizing her own press conference after she was forbidden to have been circling for a while but have not been confirmed by neither BAGA nor Lisa herself. Whatever the reasons are, Lisa retired knowing that she was the best gymnast ever to come out of Great Britain and that she had brought many world wide fans to British gymnastics.
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