Freshman gymnast Amelia Knight is not from this side of the pond. She’s from Bristol, England, and is coach Nadalie Walsh’s first international recruit.

“I chose Illinois because when I first came to visit it just felt right, the coaches and teammates as well as the campus having a homely feel,” Knight said. “I chose an American college so that I could pursue my academics as well as continuing with gymnastics, whereas in the UK they don’t have college sports so it would either be focusing on my education or continuing gymnastics.”

She first visited during one of Illinois’ yearly summer camps in 2018 and 2019. These camps are a great way to get noticed by universities, the in-person interactions give the coaches a way to see the gymnast’s personality and work ethic.

She came to Illinois’ camp specifically because coach Walsh has a relationship with one of Knight’s former coaches, Liz Kincaid, an assistant coach to the Great Britain National Team.

Knight liked how supportive coach Walsh is and the positive mood around the program. It has progressed a lot the last couple of years, and she wanted to be a part of it.

“We’re really happy to have her,” said coach Walsh. “She’s a really beautiful gymnast, very sweet character, and has a ton of talent with a very deep pocket of tricks. So we’re really excited about getting her out there on the competition floor and on all the events that I think she’s going to add a lot of finesse for our lineups.”

Knight started gymnastics at 2-years-old and has represented England’s women’s gymnastics squad on a few occasions. They gave her training and lessons not many gymnasts receive.

She wanted to attend a university in the U.S. because she was inspired by her national team teammates. During her high school years, she would see them go to the U.S. in order to progress their education and athletic career.

They have been a big help in her transition from England to Illinois. Abi Solari, a junior at the University of California, Berkeley and Phoebe Turner and Laura Cooke, a junior and sophomore at Iowa State. They helped her prepare and gave her expectations based on their experiences.

Also, two Illinois men’s gymnasts from the United Kingdom, sophomore Josh Cook from Penarth, Wales and junior Hamish Carter from West Midlands, England were there for her as well.

Another person who has been huge during her time here has \ roommate freshman Abby Mueller, helping her sort everything out when she got here. But she hasn’t been the only one to impact her while she has been here.

“It’s really nice that the men have had a lot of international student-athletes. So they did a really good job making sure Amelia doesn’t feel out of place, but as far as our older girls, we always have Kylie Noonan and Nicole Biondi, Kasey Meeks. I think that they just do a really good job of being willing and able to help. And they did do that for her,” said Coach Walsh.

Especially during the pandemic, she needed these people to help guide her through the unknown.

As an international student, the pandemic made it much more difficult for Knight to arrive at Illinois in time for the fall semester. The British bureaucracy was affected, which in turn affected her through delays for her Visa and her end of school exams and transcripts.

This shows the impact of the Illini “culture,” not only does not Knight want to travel and explore new places, especially if it can help advance her career educationally and athletically, but she handled the adversity brought about by the pandemic professionally.

“I think that we have built a really strong culture of trust and a championship mind for all of the athletes, where they believe. And so I don’t think that they wanted to have the pandemic be something that held them back,” Coach Walsh said.

“If anything, we continued to work with the athletes over zoom and over packets of training and mental training, different kinds of tools that we did while they were away. And we just continued to tell them they would come out of COVID better than they went in. We worked on some of their weaknesses mentally . . . and so I think the way they grew as individuals and groups . . . just made them want to have more together.”

Her favorite event is bars as her versatility gives her a lot of options for the routine she uses.

Coach Walsh thinks Knight will make the team more dynamic with her “extra cleanliness.” Her finishes are beautiful and she has very good awareness, which will help set Illinois apart.

“It’s the difference between the 9.75 and the 9.95, a very small amount of point difference, but very instrumental and very significant when it comes to adding up a team score,” said coach Walsh. “So Amelia will be the kind of person with her gymnastics and her cleanliness to push us up towards the 197 instead of staying at 196s.”

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