Thanks to an influx of East European coaches, the standards of Britain’s best young gymnasts have improved greatly. However, their world rankings have remained constant due to the dispersal of the former Soviet Union into several different teams. “For us, that was the worst thing that ever happened,” says Scott Mirceta, a 22-year old suspended on the rings. “Instead of having one great team, you suddenly had seven and they’re all brilliant.” Many of the gymnasts mention the respect and facilities that are accorded to their Russian counterparts. “For each gold medal they get, they receive $50,000” says David Wolverton, a 19 year old tumbler. “The respect they get is incredible.”

While all the coaches speak English, language takes second place to physical communication in this environment. Watching these young people tumbling across the mats is reminiscent of Riefenstahl’s footage of divers falling from the sky in Olympia, models of physical perfection defying the bounds of gravity. Perhaps this physical expression at least partly explains why gymnastics has always been so prized in societies where free speech was strictly rationed. In a society devoted to uniformity and subsuming the individual into the mass, this sport was one of the only ways that people could conjure up something better. A pure expression of beauty in a drab, conformist world. “Some of the athletes that came over say that in that society, it was the only way you could really excel, do really brilliantly at something. And they’ve really got the drive as well, as there’s maybe not any other field they can achieve that in,” says Wolverton. One way in which the sport tallies with the theories of communism is in its beautiful austerity. With just their bodies and cushioned flooring, these young people can express beauty.

Amid the noise of the gym – the bounce and flap of the trampolines, the squeak of feet on floor, the incongruous banality of daytime Radio One in the background – the faces all show a determined level of focus. For all of the athletes, time is of the essence; while most start when they’re 6 or 7, the oldest the male gymnasts can realistically hope to compete until is their late 20’s. For the female gymnasts, floor work stops in their late teens when their bodies become too curvy. For rhythm gymnasts – a strange hybrid of ballet, props and gymnastics, 18 is usually the end of the road. This urge to stop the clock to prolong their career explains the slightly odd physique of many of the girls. Many of the floorworkers are 22 from the neck up, but 14 from the neck down, while the bulk of the rhythm gymnasts have the slightly hollow look of anorexics. “That’s why they all look about 12, even though they’re 18” remarks a bitchy tumbler. “All they do is chase a ball around. I think most of them are a bit thick actually.” The music they dance to starts off with a lone Roma violin scraping over a pumping backbeat before morphing into a lush disco break. This mixture of austerity and kitsch pretty much sums the sport up.

Vladimir Chtchegolev is one of the coaches who was lured over from Russia three years ago. A burly De Niro-esque former gymnast, he refers to “his boys” with a compelling mixture of paternalism and menace. “I don’t get homesick, because I go back every year for tournaments,” he says, as “his boys” smear their feet in liquid glue and bandages and rub chalk into their hands. As we talk, the girls on the other side of the gym stand huddled around in their corner. With their scraped back hair and gaudy lycra, they look like a council estate gang; until suddenly, a wordless command is given and they peel away from each other, flipping backwards across the mats like otters with no regard for gravity, actions speak louder than words.