DEBBIE HAMPTON, coach of Fareham's Olympic gymnast Vanessa Hobbs, said her young charge did "well, but not quite well enough" on her Games debut.

The 17-year-old former Cams Hill student amassed her highest ever score, but still missed out on the top-24 cut for the individual all-around final after finishing 44th overall in Sunday's qualifiers.

Team GB had high hopes that Hobbs would make it through to the beam final, an event for which she is internationally acclaimed, but a fatal pause in her routine left her out of the reckoning in 42nd place.

Hampton, who has coached Hobbs since she was a nine-year-old at Southampton's Dynamo School of Gymnastics, reflected that the competition - headed by the US and Romania - was just too strong for the British girls.

Speaking from Athens, she said: "We didn't have a brilliant day, but the standard is so high that if you make one mistake, you've had it.

"There was some amazing work going on by Vanessa on the beam, but she missed a couple of connections when it should have been a continuous movement.

"She looked beautiful and fit and had worked really hard and a lot of people commented to me on how good she looked.

"But the judging is red hot at this level and if they see a slight error, they're not going to let it go.

"To gain the bonus marks you need to go through, you must connect the elements without pausing, and there was definite pause as Ness steadied herself after her front somersault.

"It's harsh, but that was the difference between her making the Olympic final or not making it."

Hampton said: "Vanessa's very philosophical. She's only 17 and in the space of only a couple of years she's gone from the national squad to the Olympics.

"She did all four pieces of apparatus - the beam, vault, floor and bars - and it's been a great experience for her just to be here. There's always next time..."