BETH TWEDDLE is hopeful she will lead the British medal bid at the London Olympics after getting a taste of what is to come at the Gymnastics World Championships.

The European champion clinched gold in the floor exercise at the O2 Arena on Sunday, the venue for the London Games, to claim her second world title following her win on the uneven bars in 2006.

At 24, the Liverpool gymnast is one of the oldest competitors but she is eager to compete in London to try and make up for the disappointment of just missing out on a medal at the Beijing Games.

‘‘I haven’t ruled it out. Obviously after Beijing it was pretty disappointing,’’ she said.

‘‘I went straight back in the gym and decided I might as well take each competition as they come.

‘‘Hopefully I’ll still be there in 2012, as long as the youngsters aren’t kicking me out of the team.’’ In the floor final she went first and produced a superb routine, the most difficult in the competition, to score 14.650.

She watched on as her rivals were unable to surpass her tally as she led for the whole event to make amends for missing out on the uneven bars final and add to the silver won by Daniel Keatings for Britain in the all-around event.

Tweddle believes the team’s success at these championships, despite Louis Smith missing out in the pommel horse, bodes well for the future and the European Championships in Birmingham in 2010 are next on the horizon.

‘‘It’s definitely one of the best teams that we’ve had in a while. In the camp everyone’s so supportive of each other,’’ she said.

‘‘Louis was one of the first to come up to me on Wednesday to say ‘Don’t worry about it, at least you’ve got floor to sort yourself out’.

‘‘At least we’ve got a couple of medals from this competition.

Two or three years ago you would have been lucky to see one medal, if any.’’ ‘‘We’re lucky that we’ve hosted the world championships this year, (then) we’ve got the Europeans.

‘‘We’re trying to raise the profile of gymnastics leading up to the 2012 Olympics, get kids involved.

‘‘It’s just the problem that we’ve got is kids are coming through the doors but we haven’t got the facilities to accommodate them.

‘‘There are so many waiting lists around, so I’m sure there are lots of little girls out there sitting waiting.’’