The First of Many

One day at practice, I was on vault 4 days before I was supposed to compete at a meet.  I was practicing what is called a tsukahara.  This is like a roundoff backhandspring back tuck, except on the vault instead of the floor. It is extremely difficult to master, and nerve-racking as well.  I had not yet mastered it, and this was going to be my first time competing it. I landed a little bit short, and jammed my ankles like I had done a million times before.  But this time was different.  I sat on the landing mat and looked up at my coach Mike with tears in my eyes and said, "ow".  He looked down at me and replied with, "ow?" and all I had to say was, "no, ow." and he knew it was broken.  This was the worst pain I had ever felt (at the time) in my life.  I sat down on the mat holding my ankle as I watched it swell bigger and bigger by the minute. My coaches called my mom and she came and picked me up and brought me to the hospital.  After some X-rays, it was confirmed that my foot was broken.  Specifically, the bone on the inside of my ankle right under the big ankle bone.  The doctors put me in a cast, and I was obviously out of gymnastics for a while. 

         I wasn’t just devastated about not being able to do gymnastics, but this happened right before high school gymnastics season started.  I competed for a club team, AKA the Beverly YMCA North Shore Wildcats, which was year round.  During the winter, I also competed for Beverly High School so I was averaging 5-hour practices, on top of competing for two different teams.  I was so excited to finally get to high school and compete for Beverly High because after years of watching them practice in our gym I dreamed about competing with them.  With this injury, I would be missing almost the entire high school season.  Words couldn’t describe how heartbroken I was.  I was so nervous that the coach wouldn’t allow me to be on the team since I couldn’t show her what I was capable of, but to my surprise, she welcomed me (and my crutches) with open arms.  It was at that moment that I began working harder than ever.