Amanda Jayne Reddin

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(born 6 June 1965), née Harrison, later Kirby, is a gymnastics coach, and former Olympic gymnast, for Great Britain. Personal coach of many successful gymnasts, including three-time world champion and Olympic medallist

Beth Tweddle Elizabeth Kimberly Tweddle (born 1 April 1985) is a retired British artistic gymnast. Renowned for her uneven bar and floor routines, she was the first female gymnast from Great Britain to win a medal at the European Championships, World Cham ...

, double Olympian

Hannah Whelan Hannah Kate Whelan (born 1 July 1992) is a retired British artistic gymnast who competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2012 Summer Olympics. Whelan won three European Championships medals and four British senior national titles, and was th ...

and Olympian

Jennifer Pinches Jennifer McIlveen (née Pinches) (born 25 May 1994) is a retired artistic gymnast who competed for Great Britain in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and subsequently for the UCLA Bruins women's gymnastics team in the NCAA. In 2020, Pinches em ...

. Reddin coached for many years at the City of Liverpool Gymnastics Club. She was Head National Coach for

British Gymnastics British Gymnastics, also known as the British Amateur Gymnastics Association (BAGA), is the sports governing body for gymnastics and Trampolining in the UK. History It was founded in 1888 as the Amateur Gymnastics and Fencing Association. Gy ...

until stepping down in May 2022 just weeks before an independent review into abuse in the sport.

Gymnastics career

1983 World Championships

Harrison was a member of the Great Britain team, which placed 17th, in the

1983 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships The 22nd Artistic Gymnastics World Championships were held in Budapest, the capital of Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by ...

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

1984 Olympics

At age 19, Harrison competed at the

1984 Summer Olympics The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the secon ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

women's artistic gymnastics Artistic gymnastics is a discipline of gymnastics in which athletes perform short routines on different apparatuses. The sport is governed by the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique, Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG), which ...

for Great Britain placing 7th in the team competition and 22nd in the all around competition.

Coaching career

Kirby began her coaching career in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

, but soon moved to

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

in 1992 to coach at th
City of Liverpool Gymnastics Club
in

Toxteth Toxteth is an inner-city area of Liverpool in the historic county of Lancashire and the ceremonial county of Merseyside. Toxteth is located to the south of Liverpool city centre, bordered by Aigburth, Canning, Dingle, and Edge Hill. The area w ...

. Today, Reddin is a qualified

FIG The fig is the edible fruit of ''Ficus carica'', a species of small tree in the flowering plant family Moraceae. Native to the Mediterranean and western Asia, it has been cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world ...

Brevet Coach and has coached at four Olympic Games (

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

) and more than 10 World Championships. In August 2020 Reddin agreed to temporarily step aside as Head National Coach at British Gymnastics while an investigation into claims about her conduct took place. In May 2022, she permanently stepped down.

Honours

In 2002, Kirby was named as UK Coach of the Year (jointly with Alex Stanton, coach to marathon world record holder

Paula Radcliffe Paula Jane Radcliffe MBE (born 17 December 1973) is a former British long-distance runner. She is a three-time winner of the London Marathon (2002, 2003, 2005), three-time New York Marathon champion (2004, 2007, 2008), and 2002 Chicago Maratho ...

). In 2004, Kirby was one of the winners in the 'Manager/Coach' category of the BBC North West Sports Awards In 2006, Kirby was awarded the

Mussabini Medal The Mussabini Medal was a sports award recognising the coaches of British sports people and teams, named after Sam Mussabini. Mussabini, who died in 1927, is considered to be the first professional (paid) coach in sport, breaking the occupation's a ...

in the UK Coaching Awards. In 2008, Kirby was nominated for the Unsung Hero award in

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...

Sportswoman of the Year Awards. She was appointed

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(OBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to sport.

The Amanda Kirby Trophy

In 2007, the Amanda Kirby Trophy was introduced in English Gymnastics (alongside the Beth Tweddle Trophy), in honour of her years of dedicated coaching and for producing a world champion (

won the 2006 World Championships on the Asymmetric Bars). The award is made annually to the coach of the gymnast in the senior English gymnastics championships who scores the highest mark on the asymmetric bars.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reddin, Amanda Living people 1965 births British female artistic gymnasts Officers of the Order of the British Empire Olympic gymnasts for Great Britain Gymnasts at the 1984 Summer Olympics Gymnastics coaches