Life for a teenager can be tough at the best of times, but Ellis O’Reilly has been taking things to new extremes. Preparations for the London-based 18 year-old’s first Olympic Games have coincided with the stark reality of finishing her A-Levels; in fact, when Hot Press comes calling, Ellis has been summoned to school to put the finishing touches to her coursework.

”It’s been hard,” she shrugs, in an early contender for understatement of the summer. “I’ve been lucky that all my A-Levels were based on course work, rather than exams. It means that if I’m in training camp, I can take my laptop with me. I don’t think I’d have been able to do it otherwise. But now that I’m finished with them, I can concentrate completely on training – it’s taken a lot of the pressure off.”

The pressure on her rather muscular shoulders is now all about Rio, where she will become the first female gymnast to ever represent Ireland in the Olympics. Born and raised in London, she qualifies for Ireland through her Antrim-born grandfather Leo. While training in the UK meant there were plenty of role models to follow, she’s well aware that she will now be the poster-girl for thousands of youngsters in this country.