After earning second place at NEC’s, my year only went
up from there. Every year at the end of
the competition season there is a nation wide competition, appropriately
titled, Nationals. That year, it
happened to be in San Diego, California.
The year before that it was in Sheboygan, Wisconsin which wasn’t that
exciting. I was beyond thrilled to get
to travel all the way to California just to compete in a meet. I trained so hard all year and was really
improving my routines. After coming back
from my injury I was extremely proud of where I was in my gymnastics
career. In fact, I was even competing
the skill that I broke my ankle on. To
this day, San Diego was one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been to.
Every Nationals has an opening ceremony, and a closing ceremony. In San
Diego, opening ceremonies were at SeaWorld.
I absolutely loved everything about it!
Opening ceremonies were in the morning so we had the entire rest of the
day to wander around SeaWorld and do as we pleased. My mom, sister, and I got to pet and kiss
dolphins, and we went on all the water rides.
However we couldn’t forget the real reason we were there, which was to
compete. We were allowed a “touch” a
couple days before the meet in order to get a feel for the equipment and warm
up our skills before competing. After a
couple more days by the pool, it was finally time to compete. This was only my second nationals, and I was
extremely nervous. At this time I was a
sophomore in high school and I was on level 8. At nationals, the level 8’s
compete on one day, and the top 50 from that competition advance to the second
competition the next day. From there,
the total scores from both days are added together, and that is how they decide
awards.
Fortunately, I had the best two meets
of my life! I placed in the top 50 the first day and moved on to the second day
competition, and did extremely well. When
it came time for awards, I wasn’t expecting anything because there were so many
amazing gymnasts from all over the nation.
They started at 12th place and worked their way up to
first. When they got to the top 5 I ruled
myself out because of how many girls were there. They announced 5th place, and I heard
my name! My eyes bugged out of my head and I had to pinch myself to make sure
this was actually happening. My
teammates were screaming for me in excitement as I went up to the podium to
accept my award. I was speechless…5th
place in the entire nation. That was the best moment in my entire gymnastics
career.
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