Ruby Evans, the 19-year-old Welsh gymnast, won gold in the floor final at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, a result that has further fuelled her rapid rise to public attention since her Olympic debut two years earlier. The victory came just two days after she left the arena in tears following a sixth-place finish in the individual all-around competition, and it marked the first Commonwealth Games gold for Wales in women's artistic gymnastics.
Evans first stepped into the spotlight as a 17-year-old competing at the Paris 2024 Olympics, an experience she says she was not fully prepared for in terms of the attention it would bring.
How did gymnastics fame catch her by surprise?
Evans admits she had little sense of how large an audience the Olympics commanded until she found herself at the centre of it. She now has 127,000 Instagram followers and close to two million likes on TikTok, numbers she says she never expected.
"I didn't actually think I'd get that many followers after the Olympics,"
"Because I was so young, I'd never really watched an Olympics. I didn't actually realise how many people watched the Olympics."
"I remember just opening my phone [after competing] and it wouldn't even turn on, there was just so much going on."
How did she turn disappointment into a historic gold?
On the Sunday evening in Glasgow, Evans left the arena visibly upset after finishing sixth in the individual all-around final. Two days later, on Tuesday, she returned to secure a landmark gold for Wales in the floor final, having withdrawn from the uneven bars final in order to focus her energy on the floor event, according to Nation.Cymru.
Her winning routine scored 13.500, ahead of England's Abigail Martin, who took silver with 13.333, and Shantae-Eve Amankwaah, who claimed bronze with 13.300, according to Nation.Cymru. The result was confirmed as the first Commonwealth Games gold in Welsh women's artistic gymnastics history, according to Olympics.com.
Evans described channelling her frustration from the all-around result into her floor performance, saying afterwards that her
