Ellis O’Reilly represented Ireland in the women’s artistic gymnastics individual all-around at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, becoming the first Irish female gymnast to compete at an Olympic Games.

Growing up in Eltham in south London, she qualifies for Ireland through her Armagh-born grandfather. Her mother Jackie introduced her to gymnastics at the age of six, and she trained at the Europa Gymnastics Club in Crayford under coach Samantha James throughout her career. She comes from a remarkable sporting family – her older sister Jenna is a four-time British boxing champion who led Katie Taylor into the ring for her gold medal bout at the London 2012 Olympics, while her brothers Frank and Reggie are also boxers. O’Reilly competed at the World Championships in Nanning in 2014 and Glasgow in 2015, where she finished 98th out of 192 gymnasts – a result that earned her a place at the final Olympic qualifying event in Rio in April 2016.

She qualified by scoring 50.032, comfortably above the required standard of 49.134. She was three-time Irish all-around champion and won three silver medals at the Northern European Championships in Limerick in 2015. She had been studying for her A-levels while training for the Games.

She retired in 2017 aged 19, later revealing that injuries including a broken neck, disc herniation and dislocated knees had left her facing potential paralysis if she continued.