Frank Turner (gymnast)

Frank Conway Turner (5 November 1922 – 27 September 2010) was a British gymnast who took part in four Olympic Games, three as a competitor and the fourth as National Coach; he was captain of the British Gymnastics team in the 1948 Summer Olympics. Turner was four times British gymnastics champion.

Born in the East End of London in 1922, Turner developed an interest in sports as a boy, training in table tennis, diving, football, boxing and gymnastics. As a flyweight Turner boxed in the semi-finals of the Amateur Boxing Association of England Championship before deciding to develop his interest in gymnastics. Aged 11 he won the South of England Boys Championship in 1933 before making his international debut aged 15 in 1938. On leaving school in 1939 he worked as a bank clerk, but during World War II he was conscripted into the Royal Artillery in 1941. He served in North Africa and Sicily and was twice wounded.

On being selected to captain the British gymnastics team in the 1948 Summer Olympics, Turner and the rest of the team had little if any experience of competing at an international level, and were unofficially coached by Helmut Bantz, a recently released German prisoner of war who had stayed in England as an agricultural worker. Turner competed in the Men's Individual All-Around, the Men's Team All-Around, the Men's Floor Exercise, the Men's Horse Vault, the Men's Parallel Bars, the Men's Horizontal Bar, the Men's Rings, and the Men's Pommelled Horse. A lifelong friend was fellow competitor George Weedon.

Turner was also at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, competing in the Men's Individual All-Around, the Men's Team All-Around, the Men's Floor Exercise, the Men's Horse Vault, the Men's Parallel Bars, the Men's Horizontal Bar, the Men's Rings, and Men's Pommelled Horse.

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