Taeja James retired from gymnastics aged 17 – now she is heading back to the Commonwealth Games.

The Nottingham native won a team event silver at the competition aged just 15 on the Gold Coast in 2018 but later stepped back from the sport assuming she would never revisit the sport she dedicated so much of her childhood to.

Yet five years later, she was inspired to return by her teammates and will now take to the mat for Team England once more in Glasgow this summer.

England topped the gymnastics medal table with 11 golds at the 2022 Games in Birmingham, including the women’s all-around team title, and James hopes to be a part of similar success this time around.

She said: “I didn't want to do it anymore. I fell out of love with the sport. So I decided that I wanted to stop.

“And then one day I said to my coach, ‘I'm going to come in [to the gym]’ and she didn't believe me. Then I came in, and now I'm here.  

“My teammate, Alia [Leat], stopped for a while, and when she came back, I saw that she won the British Championships. And I was like, ‘Maybe I could come back.’ 

“Within a month, I had all my skills back, so it was pretty easy. I didn't forget anything, but I was really scared at first to try things. But after I did it once, I was like, ‘Oh, I can do it.’

“It was a little bit of a surprise, but I said to my mum that I could get these skills back.”

Despite taking to gymnastics again like a duck to water, coming out of retirement wasn’t without its challenges.

After earning a bronze on the vault and a silver on the beam at the British Team Championships, she broke the talus bone in her foot, which took months to heal fully.

“It was hard - I didn't do the English Championships because I came out of my cast a few weeks before,” said James, whose support from The National Lottery assists with full-time training, access to the world's best coaches, and pioneering technology, science and medical support.

“And then at the British Championships, I wasn't really ready because my foot was still a bit sore.

“Maybe I rushed back a little bit, but then it was a bit stressful because I didn't really have scores to use because I didn't compete in the first half [of the season] as I would have liked.”

British Gymnastics have received 47 National Lottery grants totalling around £47 million since 1998, with the support in place throughout the lifetimes of the English women’s squad heading north of the border.

Still just 23 years old, James is the elder stateswoman of the five-strong team.

With six gold medals on offer in the women’s programme, there is every chance James could find herself on the podium to cap her hugely impressive comeback.

She said: “My family is stressed that I'm competing, especially my mum, as she doesn't like watching it. She watched me at the British Championships, and I think she stayed in the stadium, but years ago, she wouldn't have been in the stadium. She'd go out. She wouldn't be able to watch.”