Crash Landings

It was the third meet of the season and Natalie had already scratched floor due to an unwelcome return of her crippling fear of tumbling backwards.  But vault was next and since it's her strongest event, she proceeded with confidence.

Nat has always been a powerful vaulter.  Two gold medals on vault in the first two meets of the season were proof of that fact.  

It's customary for a coach to stand near the vault in warm-ups and give the gymnasts an extra boost--a small toss of their bodies, if you will--as they go over the vault table.  On her first warm-up vault, that extra boost sent Nat flying uncontrollably forward and ended with a face-first dive into the mat, her right hand crumpled beneath her.  She stood up and immediately burst into tears while clutching her hand against her chest. 

Now, when you have an emotional child with anxious tendencies, you don't automatically assume that tears equate to injury.  Did it hurt?  Sure.  Was it shocking?  Yes.  Did I think she was injured? Maybe, but not really.

I tried to be encouraging from the sidelines and after applying a bit of ice, Natalie competed vault. And she did it well--9.15, 5th place.

Then came bars.  She strapped on her grips, covered them in chalk and prepared for warm-ups.  It looked as if she was going to be ok.  But as soon as she tried to grip the bar, she jumped off the apparatus, grabbed her hand in pain and tears.  "Ok, so maybe she really is hurt," I thought.

She scratched bars.  This was a late night meet and I was wishing we could just go home.  But Natalie put on her brave face and was actually able to compete beam.  She scored a 9.0 and placed 6th.  

It's always fun to share the podium with her gymnastics bestie.

While we were waiting to reunite with Natalie after the competition, the owner of our gym approached me and told me that Natalie's hand was indeed swollen and he suggested an x-ray.  Ok, ok, so she wasn't just being dramatic, she really was hurt.

Look at those little sausage fingers:

Jon took Natalie to see the doctor the next morning (we didn't get home from her meet until 11:00 at night!) while I was at work.  They sent me this picture:

As you can see, the pediatrician put a much-too-large splint on Nat's hand and told us we were looking at a 5-6 week recovery.  It was suggested, though, that we she an orthopedic to have them take a look.  We were planning to leave for a competition in Arizona in two short days and we were thankfully able to get into the ortho later that afternoon.  It was there that we got the good news that her hand would heal in two short weeks and that bulky splint could be replaced by this custom-made, nifty, waterproof option:

Still, Nat's Arizona meet looked like this:

This is what scratching an event looks like:

Wanna know what she did attempt in Arizona?  A one-armed beam routine.  It didn't end up going so well, but we were proud of her for trying.

Early the next morning, Alyssa started her competition on bars with a spectacular crash of her own:


I admit, I thought we might be looking at more broken bones.  But thankfully Alyssa popped up from the floor immediately.  I could see she was startled and shaken, but uninjured.  She bravely finished that bar routine and did the rest quite well, but it's hard to recover score-wise from a fall like that. She later had a fall on floor as well, making for an extremely disappointing meet.  She held herself together beautifully throughout the competition, but not placing on any events for the first time in an eight-year gymnastics career, was exceptionally disheartening.

Following the awards ceremony, she allowed herself approximately three minutes of agony-of-defeat kind of tears and then put it all behind her.  I praised her for her attitude, told her that the way she handles herself makes me far more proud of her than any medal that she could possibly earn.  Then I told her that how she battles back from this adversity is where her true character will be displayed.

And oh boy did she come back...