By Tom Harle from the M&S Bank Arena

Giarnni Regini-Moran defied years of injuries and won the gold medal at the World Championships in Lake Constance, which was like a dream for him.

At the age of 17, he spent six hours in the operating room – in a terrible training accident, he simultaneously tore his posterior cruciate ligament, damaged his medial collateral ligament and strained his anterior cruciate ligament.

Pain is part of his life, but he received a sporting reward in the form of a fairytale victory on the ground at the World Championships in Liverpool.

“There were so many moments when I almost gave up and threw in the towel,” said Regini-Moran, whose father is of Irish descent and her mother is of Italian descent.

“I never thought I would be able to jump, land and run on this ground with the necessary strength.

“I didn’t think I would be strong enough to be among the best in the world because of what I went through. My knee will never be 100% again, but I’ve learned to live with it.

“Physiotherapists and doctors spent hours, days, months with me. I lost my confidence – you can let things like that get you down and think negatively about them, but you have to believe in yourself.”

Regini-Moran is the fourth British gymnast to be crowned world champion, after Beth Tweddle, Max Whitlock and Joe Fraser.

The door opened when Filipino pre-event favorite Carlos Yulo fell on his first pass and Japan’s Ryosuke Doi rose from the ground.

The Great Yarmouth-born star performed by far the most difficult routine of all the gymnasts in the final, nailing all of his landings and scoring an excellent 14.533 points.

He defeated Japan’s Daiki Hashimoto, who was crowned the best male gymnast in the world last night with gold in the all-around, by 0.33 points.

Regini-Moran said: “This is only the third time I have done this exercise. I have not done any in training.”

“In training, I tried to increase the difficulty level and improve, but it never clicked until I sat down with my coaches and made some changes.

“Anything can happen in a final. You have to land on your feet and land well. I really don’t know how I feel, I’m at a loss for words.”

Regini-Moran helped Great Britain to a team bronze medal win on Wednesday and secured their tickets to the Paris Olympic Games at the first opportunity.

The 24-year-old will be one of the key names to keep an eye on in Team GB in two years’ time as he looks to combine his world title with an Olympic equivalent.

“It’s really strange, but I dreamt last night that I would become world champion,” he said sadly.

“I really don’t know what it was or why I had it, but I had a dream. I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want to talk about it or curse it, but now it’s happened.”

The Liverpool 2022 World Gymnastics Championships were one of the largest international sporting events ever held in the city, with over 500 gymnasts from more than 70 countries competing at the M&S Bank Arena from 29 October to 6 November 2022.