Gymnastics: Holly's back after breaking hip and both her ankles

Haddington gymnast Holly Ramage is confident she can bounce back to top level competition after enduring more injuries in the past three years than most athletes suffer in an entire career.

Bad luck really did come in threes for the Lasswade Gymnastics Club 15-year-old, who broke her hip in 2008, an ankle at the start of 2009 and then both ankles later that summer.

Now after a year of rehab, six weeks of which she spent with both legs in plaster, and strength and conditioning training with sportscotland's institute of sport network in the East, she is on the way back to her previous form.

"With the last injury I was out for about a year and when I was in plaster I couldn't do anything," said Holly, who is coached by Susan Purves at Lasswade. "It was really boring and I just wanted to be training and competing.

"The institute physio gave me exercises to strengthen my ankles and eventually I started going back into the gym and doing more exercises to do with gymnastics. The strength and conditioning which I do twice a week has made a big difference. It has taken a while, a whole year to get my full fitness back but now I'm back the coaches have said I am stronger and I'm doing everything with better technique."

What would have floored a less determined athlete has not deterred the resilient teenager. In February she made her first foray back into competition at the Scottish Championships in Perth and was recently part of the Scottish team which won the Celtic Cup in Northern Ireland.

"I was a wee bit scared to do gymnastics again," she admitted. "I did okay at the Celtic Cup event though I had a few falls so it wasn't my best. The main thing is that it is good to be back competing and I realise how much I enjoy it."

Holly was competing in Austria at the weekend as Scotland came fourth in an event featuring seven other nations. There were around 60 girls competing and Holly came ninth all-round individual and third on the beam. Medals are far from her mind at the moment, though - her main focus is regaining confidence, and performing better and "cleaner".

It is a measure of their faith in her that Scottish Gymnastics recently selected Holly along with another ten young Scots - amongst them East Lothian's Eilidh Craig and West Lothian trio Shannon Archer, Aimee Bryce and Jade MacKinnon - for its Scottish Gymnastics Artistic 2014 Performance Programme under coach Rod Smith. Working in partnership with the sportscotland institute of sport network, the programme supports performance gymnasts aiming to achieve a medal at the Glasgow Commomwealth Games.

"There are lots of benefits, including coaching and support from the institute," said Holly. "It would be amazing to represent Scotland in Glasgow at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. "Being selected into the squad is the first step on the way."