Three inexperienced teenagers and a 20-year-old rose to the occasion in spectacular fashion to claim Great Britain’s first women’s team gymnastics medal since 1928.

In a remarkable vindication of their governing body’s controversial selection policy, Alice Kinsella, Amelie Morgan and 16-year-old twins Jennifer and Jessica Gadirova snatched bronze behind the team representing the Russian Olympic Committee and the United States.

A nerveless all-round display by the British quartet saw them realistically targeting an historic-enough fifth place finish heading into the final of the four rotations, which would have been enough to match the team’s performance in Rio five years ago.

But Italy’s failure to summon the scores they required on beam in their final piece of apparatus saw the British team move into the medal positions on the stadium scoreboard, to the general astonishment of the star-struck team on the Ariake Stadium floor.

Alice, 20, who is a Basildon gymnast, was taking part in her first games in Tokyo.

She is the daughter of Colchester United legend Mark and granddaughter of U’s stalwart and former vice-chairman and director John Schultz. 

Gazette: Great Britain's Alice Kinsella, Jennifer Gadirova, Jessica Gadirova and Amelie Morgan celebrate with their bronze medals after the Women's Team Final at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre. Picture: PAGreat Britain's Alice Kinsella, Jennifer Gadirova, Jessica Gadirova and Amelie Morgan celebrate with their bronze medals after the Women's Team Final at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre. Picture: PA

She put a tough individual qualifying session on Sunday behind her, and it was her consistency, culminating in a crucial personal best score of 14.166 on the uneven bars, that allied with the Italians’ last-minute failure and moved her team onto the podium.

“Obviously after vault I looked up and thought ok we could potentially get a medal,” she said.

“So I thought I’m going to go and do the best bar routine I could ever do, which I did.

“When we saw we’d come third we were speechless – I was on the floor, crying and everything. Our main aim was just to go out there and do better than qualification.

"We’ve proved to (our critics) that we’re able to do it, and we’ve come away with a bronze.”

The Britons totalled 164.096, with the Russian Olympic Committee taking gold and the US team settling for silver for the first time since 2008.