The first time we heard we would participate in the AVGP was at the Dutch nationals for
individual, held in the end of May. At that time, the routines of our group were only
created for national competitions, and we'd never give that much attention to group.
Our group consisted of Maaike Hoogstede, Melanie Kap, Tessa Blommesteyn, Marie-lou van Laar,
Valerya Bouravkina and me. After the nationals, we started to make some changes in the
routine. But during the first week we still couldn't do much group training, because I was also
going to compete at the No Limits Open one week after the nationals. But then we started
training until the holidays, starting 30 july. During holidays we didn't have any training
at all, except for me, Maaike and Roxanne, who trained at the No Limits Sports Camps.
In the first week of August we started training to build on our condition, on the beach
and in the forest, because SV Pax didn't have money for more extra training. (Our official
training would start September 1st, after the AVGP :S) By that time, Melanie and Tessa were
still in Mallorca on holiday. The next week we could finally start training. For the first
time we could train our routines in a high sports hal.
Here you can see some photos of our training
We trained for two and a half weeks and on wednesday 27th of August we went to Deventer.
Wednesday 27 August
We (the gymnasts) would go by train, while our coach Lisette would drive our luggage to
Deventer by car. The train stopped next to the sports hal De Scheg, so it was very easy.
Our first training in Deventer that afternoon was filmed by a tv-team of the regional tv.
We only trained in the training hal this time. After the training we went to our host
families. I was together with Maaike and Valerya.
Thursday 28 August
Today we had training from 12 - 4 o'clock. During our training, suddenly Anna Bessonova,
Tamara Yerofeeva and Natalya Godunko walked in and started to train next to us. Wow...
Watching them during training is almost better then during a competition, in my opinion.
After the training we got the official clothes of the Dutch Federation.
Friday 29 August
We had to be in De Scheg at ten o'clock latest today, but Maaike, Valerya and I already were
there just after half past nine because we wanted to see the other countries training.
It was really cool just to walk in that corridor which was always locked for us
when we went to the AVGP to watch the competitions earlier years. The Russians were training
when we walked in, so we had a lot to look at. But after a while our coach wanted to start
our training.
There was podium training today and almost all countries had arrived, so we
didn't have that much time and space as the days before. Podium training didn't went that well...
not at all I should say... Lisette seemed a little bit overstressed to me and we did a lot more
music training than normally. We finished about a quarter past one, but we stayed in the sports
hal the whole afternoon, watching other countries train.
Saturday 30 August
The big day! At first we had to march up with all other participants. It was a very long line,
but because Holland was the last country and I'm the tallest of our group, I was really the
last in the row.
Our other coach Natalya did our make-up while we where watching the first routines of the
individuals. Then we started our warming up. It was a lot more crowded in the training hal
as normally, but we discovered a other litlle hall where was almost nobody.
Our first routine was ribbon. I was a lot less nervous then I'd expected, and our routine
went very, very good! I don't think we've ever did such a good routine in a training. After
the routine it rained cuddly toys, one almost hitting Maaike's head :D. After the routine everybody was
so happy and smiling and a lot of Dutch girls were waiting for us to congrat us.
We had some time rest before the competition for hoop-ball, and when we came in the entrance hall a lot of people wanted our
autograph. Some people even wanted to take a picture with us. Really cool...
After the pause we started preparing for hoop-ball. Hoop ball had some mistakes, but it
wasn't really really bad as far as I've noticed. We ended last, as we'd expected, but at the
ending ceremony they said we were above Lithuania. Everybody was very happy, except the
girls of Lithuania, who were looking strange to us all the time. Later we discovered why...
we didn't beat them, it was just a mistake of the speaker...
We wouldn't compete on Sunday, so we all went to the host family of Melanie, Tessa and Marie-lou
and stayed there for a while. It was pretty late when we got to bed.
Sunday 31 August
Today we were only going to watch the competition... we thought! A lot of people who where
only coming on Sunday where disapointed that they couldn't see us now, so our coach asked
permission to show one routine again during the gala. We wanted to perform hoop-ball, to
solve the mistakes and because we knew ribbon never would be as good as Saterday again.
But the group of Italy was already going to perform their hoop-ball routine, so we had to
do ribbon. It wasn't as good as Saterday, I made a very stupid mistake and there where other
things too.
For the other groups: I really loved Italy hoop-ball! So much risky and original moves and throws!
I really liked Bulgaria's Bolero to. The best gala for me was Ukraine with Moulin Rouge.
It was really great to participate at this tournament and I hope we can be there again next year.