A YOUNG Basingstoke gymnast has just shared a world championship victory as a member of a Great Britain team.

The team gold in Germany was all the more remarkable for Julie Cheung because she is only just getting back to competition after suffering a snapped achilles tendon in March.

The 18-year-old from Oakridge, Basingstoke, shared the gold medal success with clubmate Charmaine Sala, Donna MacLean and Kathryn Peberdy at the world trampoline and tumbling championships in Hanover.

Peberdy, from Wirral Gym Club, was second in qualifying while Sala was seventh, Cheung 10th and MacLean 11th of the 29 starters.

Their combined positions put them in the final, where they finished ahead of Russia, whose combined points total was 4.4 behind. France took the bronze medal with the Ukraine coming in in fourth place.

Cheung and Sala are members of Andover Gym Club, where they are coached by Alan Lavelle and Vadim Skakun, and both train full-time with the British squad at Lilleshall National Sports Centre.

The youngest of five children, Cheung took up tumbling after eight years in artistic gymnastics. She started at Lilleshall last year and is able to fit in A-level study in business studies at New College, Telford.

Her first senior international was the European championships in St Petersburg, Russia, last year when her Great Britain team finished second.

She was a finalist in the 2001 British Tournament and last year she became the British over-17 champion and was fifth in the Belgian open.

Earlier in this injury-dogged year she was eighth in an international in Ukraine.