Beth Tweddle has competed at three Olympic games and travelled the world with many an elite athlete - but she experienced camaraderie as good as any on the world stage when she took part in the nationwide parkrun initiative on Saturday.

Following on from the UK’s biggest ever sports participation event I Am Team GB, #teamparkrun saw 100 of UK Sport’s National Lottery funded Olympic and Paralympic athletes involved in 5km parkrun events across the country.

Retired gymnast Tweddle braved the rains and headed down to Prince’s Park in her hometown of Liverpool to help show thanks to the public for their support that comes through The National Lottery.

The Olympian was the first female gymnast from Great Britain to win a medal at the European Championships, World Championships, and Olympic Games - but she took on a different role as a tail walker at the parkrun.

The flat, 5km route provided Tweddle with steadier ground than a set of uneven bars, and she revealed that she was blown away by the parkrun atmosphere.

“As I’ve been running around I’ve been talking to some of the people who come week in week out,” said Tweddle. “You can see they’ve got a real group of friends here.

“They’re really supportive of each other, those that are the frontrunners you see them lining the course afterwards supporting those who’re doing it for the first time or have just started running.

“I was bringing up the rear end for those that maybe needed a bit of help and support along the way, it was giving encouragement to them.

"For me the best thing is seeing the camaraderie between the people and the amount of support around.

"They were sort of saying to me it must have been amazing to travel around with your team, but actually when you see what's happening here every Saturday that's even better.

"Some of the people were saying they've done over 200 runs since the parkrun first started, and the fact that you can jump around different cities if you're visiting people, it's a really good idea, I love it.

Parkrun takes place every Saturday at 9am in England and Wales and 9.30am in Scotland and Northern Ireland and offers a free and easy way to take your first steps into becoming more active.

The 2012 Olympic bronze medallist is one of Great Britain’s finest ever gymnasts, but revealed she owes a lot of her success to National Lottery funding, which allowed her to train full-time and get access to the best facilities.

The National Lottery funding system is the envy of many rival countries, a fact that wasn’t lost on parkrun participant Andy Storey, 50, from Liverpool, who came third in today’s run.

“I’ve just come back from Belgium, we were there for nine years with my family and we came back,” he said.

“My daughter does gymnastics to an elite level, that’s how I could say hello to Beth today because she’s at the same gym club.

“They’ve been doing gymnastics in Belgium for the past five, six years, and we’ve noticed that there’s more funding here, there’s better coaches, it’s a better standard and a lot of that’s down to The National Lottery money.

“We were so surprised to see Beth and all the Commonwealth Games lot down here today, it was a nice surprise, maybe that spurred me on to get third place.

“It’s really inspiring, and it makes us think we’re really something because people actually come down and notice us.

“You turn up and it really makes you think that sportspeople are interested in us.”

The National Lottery players have been supporting sport since the very beginning. From thousands of community sports and fitness projects, right through to elite training and a whopping 848 Olympic and Paralympic medals - by playing, you’ve made it all possible.