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Elizabeth Tweddle was born on April 1st, 1985 in Johannesburg, South Africa and is the younger of two children to Jerry and Anne. Beth began gymnastics at age of seven and trained locally at Crewe & Nantwich GC under top coaches Charlie Oaks and Fergus Beedham. Beth was fairly successful as she came up through the levels and was a member of the British Under-12s squad from 1994 to 1996. After her first British Espoir Championships in 1997, Beth switched clubs to City of Liverpool club to train under Amanda Kirby, a 1984 Olympic gymnast and now world-renowned high-performance coach.
A couple months after moving to Liverpool, Beth competed at the 1998 Espoir British Championships, however, the disaster struck when Beth broke her foot warming up for the Espoir floor finals. She only could be able to train on bars to put less pressure on her ankle. Beth moved up as a junior in 1999 and competed in her first international competition, the Great Britain vs Switzerland. She won a gold medal with her team and finished first in all-around. A few months later, she placed second place in all-around, vault, and bars at the Junior British Championships. Beth once again did very well in her second year as a junior. She was a Junior European Event Finals. She continued her success as a junior at the 1999 British Junior Championships, winning three event finals and placed third in all-around. Beth moved up as a senior in 2001. She became a Senior British Champion for the first time and made her first Worlds Team.
Despite having a successful year in 2001, it was in 2002 when people around the world started to take notice of this excellent bars worker. Beth started off her year by winning the bars title at Cottbus Cup. In May, Beth competed at the European Championships, held in Greece. She placed 14th AA and qualified to bars and beam finals. After an amazing display on the asymmetric bars, Beth won Great Britain's first ever European medal for a female gymnast, a bronze. After the European Championships, Beth has helped her club, Liverpool to win the British Team Champion title which they have dominated for next four years. Beth became the British Champion for the second consecutive year. Beth continued her success at the Manchester Commonwealth Games where Beth had helped the British team to silver and repeated her 2nd place finish in the all-around competition. Going one better in event finals, Beth won gold on her speciality event in front of a delighted home-crowd. At the World Championships which was held In Debrecen. Beth qualified to the bars final at the World Championships and placed 4th in a tough group of competitors.
Beth continued to build her success in the senior ranks in 2003. She got invited to compete at the VISA American Cup and won a bronze medal on bars. Beth continued winning international medals on her best event at French International, Cottbus Cup, GB vs Spain, Achlandeturnoi, GB vs Russia, and Glasgow Grand Prix. Beth once again won the British title for 3rd consecutive year. Beth was not be able to compete in all events at the due of an ankle injury at the World Championships in Anaheim, California. She, however, was still an essential member of the team and helped the British team to qualify to the 2004 Olympics Games. She has qualified to the bars finals and desperately wanted to make up for the disappointment a year ago when many felt she deserved the bronze medal but had to settle for 4th. Competing first, Beth performed her routine to the best of her ability and had to sit back and watch the 7 remaining competitors take their turn. In the end only two would surpass Beth, and history was made once again with another bronze medal.
2004 was the year that Beth had been working for since she was 7. With her ultimate goal of the 2004 Olympics in sight, Beth was determined to stay injury free so that she could compete in the all-around in Athens. At the European championships in Amsterdam Beth helped the team place an unprecedented 5th and placed 11th in all-around. Only legendary bar worker Svetlana Khorkina bettered Beth's score. Beth's silver medal was actually the 400th medal ever to be awarded at a European Championships and she received a special award from Nadia Comaneci. At the National championships later that year Beth easily retained her 4th All-Around title and it was not a surprise to anyone that she successfully made the Olympic team. Athens proved to be an amazing experience for the then teenager. Despite not having the results she had hoped for after not qualifying for the bar final and a disastrous beam routine opening her All-Around competition, Beth enjoyed every second her month of being an Olympian. Staying in the Olympic village with the rest of the British team, Beth enjoyed mingling with stars from other sports and other countries and was captured on the BBC footage of the closing ceremony on the shoulders of a member of the hockey team, waving her GB flag!
Beth became even more success in the senior ranks in 2005 and 2006. Beth got invited back to American Cup in United States. She placed 4th on bars and earned a bronze medal on floor exercise. After the American Cup, she had won BUSA Championships and helped the Liverpool to win the British Team Championships for 4th time in row. At Beth's next big international assignment, she placed 2nd all-around at the European Championships Prelims. Beth, however, had a disaster fell off the bars during the finals; she was not be able to finish the meet. Beth was very disappointed that she was not be able to try win an all-around medal at the European Championships. After the European Championships, Beth competed in two dual meets against the United States (2nd AA) and China (1st AA). Beth easily won her 5th all-around title at the British Championships. Beth was selected to compete in the World Student Games where she has placed 2nd in All-Around and earned a gold medal on bars. At the World Championships which was held in Australia, Beth qualified to two event finals, bars and floor. She won her second World Medal, a bronze behind Americans, Nastia Liukin and Chellsie Memmel. Beth placed 5th on the floor. She also placed the highest World AA for a British female - 4th. Beth ended her 2005 season with three medals at Glasgow Grand Prix.
In 2006, Beth has been selected to be part of England's Commonwealth Games team which was taking place in Melbourne, Australia. Beth, however, had to pull out of the Commonwealth Games due to an ankle injury after landing awkwardly on the vault during the podium training. After the Commonwealth Games, Beth won the first British's gold medal on bars at the European Championships! She also had defeated her British National title for 6th time. After the British Championships, she has decided to rest until the World Championships to recovery her injuries. With two of the strongest gymnasts for GB team had to miss the World Championships due of injuries. Beth led the GB team and placed 11th during the preliminary rounds. During the all-around finals, she started off strongly on vault. She, however, came to grief on her strongest event, bars. She missed the re-catch on her Ray release and fell. However, she regained composure, finished the routine. Her beam was good, and she finished in style with an excellent floor routine. Beth finished in 8th place. After a stunning routine on the asymmetric bars during the event finals, Beth scored 16.200 which was plenty high enough to take the gold medal ahead of Nastia Liukin of USA and Vanessa Ferrari of Italy.
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