The Kinsella family have a particularly fine relationship with Japan. Alice, the British Olympic gymnast, will leave these shores with a bronze medal. Her father Mark, the former Charlton Athletic midfielder, was a key part of the Republic of Ireland's football team that graced the 2002 World Cup here.
Which of the two was more significant, Alice was asked on Tuesday night. 'Mine, of course,' she grinned. 'It's an Olympic medal!'
She still couldn't quite believe that the women's gymnastics team she was a part of had clinched a last-gasp bronze. They are the first GB women's team to win a gymnastics medal since 1928 — when there were so many of them making up the numbers it seemed more like an exhibition event.
Britain's gymnastics team, including Alice Kinsella (left), Amelie Morgan (second from right) and twins Jennifer (second from left) and Jessica Gadirova (right) celebrate winning bronze
No member of the team had been through the gamut of emotions quite like Kinsella. On Sunday she was visibly distraught, having fallen from the beam during the qualifying round display. Climbing back on that apparatus — her favoured piece — was to confront that disappointment.
The team's hope for the final was, in fact, little more than a 'clean' display — no mishaps — and perhaps a top five finish if they went well. But once Kinsella's beam routine was successfully accomplished in the first rotation, a weight seemed to have lifted. She never looked back.
Amelie Morgan did falter on the beam. Yet as America's Simone Biles drama unravelled all around them, the British side quietly grew in confidence and self assurance.
Theirs was a performance of unerring consistency to take bronze at the last, with the 16-year-old Gadirova
