ST HELENS can boast yet another champion after gymnast Rachael Letsche surprisingly won the senior women’s World Tumbling Championship crown after a magnificent effort in Saturday’s final in Daytona, Florida.

It means that the 23-year-old from Sutton Leach will bow out of the sport at the highest level having already decided beforehand that this tournament would be her last.

Now she wants to move her career on and her next ambition is to secure a role with global entertainment giants Cirque du Soleil.

Letsche, who started gymnastics at the age of five and began specialising at tumbling at 11, had previously won European gold medals and last year won silver at the World Games in Colombia.

But the World Championship glory is the pinnacle of her career – and came as a surprise given she had qualified for the final in eighth spot.

However, a solid first run in the final and another well executed pass in her second saw Letsche finish on 67.500 points – and after watching the remaining seven competitors perform and be scored, the final tot up saw her 0.200 points ahead of silver medallist Chen Lingxi from China.

After her stunning performance the former Sutton High pupil said: “It’s an overwhelming feeling.

“I’m so shocked but delighted with the result.

“I did not know straight away because I was first up in the final because I qualified in eighth.

“So I had to wait for all the others to do their routines and get their scores to see where I had come.”

Although tumbling takes just a few action-packed seconds on a 25 metre long spring track – it takes years of hard work to master.

Letsche has been intensively training with Great Britain – under the tutelage of coaches Craig Lowther and Zoe Styles – in Wakefield three days a week to perfect her performance.

Requiring co-ordination, power, strength and courage, gymnasts sprint before performing a series of somersaults and twists.

They are then judged on execution and degree of difficulty.

Letsche stuck to her well rehearsed plan – and that came up trumps.

She said: “I was just hoping to do my run, land well.

“I think the execution clinched it for me.

“I just went out to play safe and stuck to my run.”

Rachael says the competition is the pinnacle of the sport She said: “This is the highest point in tumbling – there is also the Europeans and the World Games – but World Championships is the biggest competition.”

People who are not familiar with the sport, or who may have had the impression that this was a gentle pastime, were amazed at the footage of Letsche’s explosive winning routine after it began being spread over social media at the weekend.

But for Letsche that final routine was the culmination of many years of hard work, dedication and sacrifice.

“I did artistic gymnastics at first and began tumbling seriously at 11. After a few competitions the Great Britain coach asked me to go for trials and went on from there.”

There have been numerous successes and travels across the globe along the way, but also no little adversity and Letsche had to bounce back from a year out after sustaining serious ankle ligament damage.

But bounce back she did, and that has allowed her to finish on such a high.

She explained: “That was always going to be my last competition.

“I have doing it for a long time now and want to move on to a better career.”

Although she is retiring from competition, she will remain involved in the sport and coaches gymnastics at Warrington Gymnastics Club, which she ties in with studying for Cabin Crew qualifications at St Helens College.

But her burning ambition now is to move into Cirque du Soleil – the entertainments company that draws heavily on acrobatic skills – having already had a two-month spell covering in the Alegria show.

After Florida Letsche certainly has a nice opening line the next time she fires off her CV – one that already includes participating in the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics.

Her exploits have again put St Helens firmly on the sporting map.