The hours of sacrifice and years of training are all worth it for the South Africa gymnast as she enters Birmingham 2022.

"Being in gymnastics has normalised crying," Caitlin Rooskrantz says. And then she laughs. "My coach [Ilse Roets] has los trane (loose tears). I'm always crying, we all are. It's contagious. We all have deep feelings and we cry for anything. We even cry when we're really happy."

A year ago Rooskrantz became the first South African female gymnast to compete in an Olympics since 2004. It was a groundbreaking achievement, too, given that the then-teenager was also the first black gymnast to represent the country in the sport at a Games. And she cried with joy. Obviously she did.

Within days of returning from Tokyo, Rooskrantz went to the tattoo parlour and had the Olympic rings inked on the inside of her left forearm. Just the five rings. "I didn't want to write 'Tokyo 2020' because I can wait until later to have all the Games added to it, hopefully Paris 2024 being the next one. My coach says I haven't hit my peak yet, so hopefully there's still a lot of writing to have done." She laughs....