Today we would leave to Berlin! It was my first real competition this season with some new routines
too so it was pretty scary. I took the day off from school to pack my bags and finish my new leotard for ball.
My coach picked my up in the afternoon to go to Rotterdam Airport. For me it was the first time to fly from
Rotterdam, and I was really amazed how small everything was compared to Schiphol. You never had to wait.
We met Karen Duran (judge) and Anna (Pobokova) at the airport. The flight was very short, and soon we landed in Berlin.
There we were picked up by a little bus with our guide for the weekend. We learned that we had arrived on a small airport
so the bustrip to the hotel took us almost as long as the flight ;)
When we arrived in the hotel, they said that there was food prepared for us, so we went to eat although we were not that hungry.
We got really huge plates full with food, and we all didn't even ate half of it :P
After dinner we went to our rooms. The hotel room was very funny. It had one door, which led to a sort of hall with four doors and
then you had two badrooms and a room for me and Anna and the other room for Karen and Lisette. I liked this way but it had one disadvantage...
in the evening we were listening to eachothers new musics and we didn't really realised that it was pretty late allready, and Lisette came to tell
us that "now we really had to go to sleep" Last time my mother did that was about five years ago :P
The Grand Prix would take place on Saterday with finals on Sunday, but the Pre-Qualification (Mercedes Benz Cup)
was allready on Friday, so I had my competition today! At nine o'clock we first went to the accreditation, which had been closed allready when we
arrived the last evening. We got a very nice bag with Berlin on it, slippers with the same text and something we still haven't found out what it is.
For the Mercedes Benz Cup, only three apparatus would be done. Ribbon would be in for sure, but from the other three, two would be drawn. We heard that we wouldn't
do the exercises with the ball. It was a pity for me, since I like my ball routine a lot.
At one o'clock we had training. I had never seen the Max Schmeling Halle before and I love it! When we came in, Ukraine was training and the hall reminded me
so much of Kiev. It also had a hill were you came down to the floor and there was a lot of space around the carpet. I felt very relaxed and really didn't want to leave
but we first had to go to the warming-up hall. It was very cold in there but when we started moving it got warmer automatically. There was almost nobody there so we had
plenty of space. It was very nice that also in this warming-up hall you had the opportunity to do your routines with music, I'd never seen that before. I did my ribbon
allready there and although I had some mistakes, I thought I would be happy if it would be this way during competition in the afternoon.
Finally we went back to the competition hall and again, the atmposphere over there was great. All my routines went pretty good and I just loved to train in that hall.
After a while Lisette told me to quit, as I had competition the same afternoon and should not be to tired. We didn't go back to the hotel, but stayed in the hall to have lunch.
After that I did my hair and make-up and started my warming-up.
When I was doing ballet, the girls of the group of De Badhoeve came in, they had arrived this morning by train. Since there were only two groups (Russia and The Netherlands) there
would not be a group competition but both groups would show both their routines on Saterday and Sunday.
The opening ceremony at 4 o'clock was pretty special too. There were two Berlin bears who gave every gymnast that was announced a little bear. After the opening ceremony it took very
long before I could do my first routine (hoop). Finally we could go down to the competition hall. Hoop was completely new but I almost wasn't nervous. My routine went pretty well, except
for some mistakes in execution and I skipped my last throw because I didn't have enough music and I was too afraid...
My second routine was ribbon, and this normally is my weakest routine. This time I liked it a lot, most of my pivots went very good, I had no drops and most importantly I didn't get tangled
in my ribbon. But afterwards my coach said that the execution (pointing knees and toes) had been very weak. Still, I think ribbon was my best routine this competition.
My last routine was clubs, and by that time I was happy I only had to do three exercises. I was having small injuries on both of my calf muscles and after a day of training ánd competition,
I started to really feel them. Well, this wasn't the reason my clubs routine was not that good, I made two very stupid drops and some balances were not fixed either. But overall I was pretty happy
with my competition in Berlin, especially because I had not been that nervous as in Kiev.
After the competition Karen gave me and Lisette some tips to work on and me and Anna went back to the hotel. Lisette and Karen had some reception or something in the hall and would come later.
Today was the Grand Prix competition. Anna had training at 8 o'clock in the morning! She asked me to come with her, and I thought it was a good idea so me, Anna and Lisette were having breakfast
at a quarter to 8. When we wanted to go to the hall, the bus driver told us to wait until there were more people. At 8 o'clock in the morning you'll have to wait a long time for that!
Finally he drove just the three of us to the hall. At first we went to the training hall. Other countries were also supposed to train now, but there was nobody elso so I thought I could do some warming-up
too. When we went to the competition hall we were alone again, so I could train my ball routine. I could even do one time music when Anna was finished.
At two o'clock Anna's competition would start, so soon we went back to the hall. The opening ceremony was very nice, each gymnast came up alone and then did some elements, just like the closing ceremony at No
Limits Open each year.
I watched the competition together with the Badhoeve girls when they didn't have to train and I was really happy that I had done my competition on Friday and was able to watch all those great gymnasts today.
Anna did very good clubs and ribbon routines if my memory is right, in hoop and ball there were some little mistakes unfortunately but overal she did a good competition. The Badhoeve group did very good too, especially
their ribbon looked very good.
That evening we played Twister in the hall in front of our room, until the Russian judge came back who had the room on the opposite of the hall. She didn't like us being there.. so we all went back to our own rooms.
Today was Anna's birthday, she became 17 years old! I had bought a present for her together with the girls of the group and Simone, Karen and Lisette had a present too. At nine o'clock we sang happy birthday for Anna and after
that we had to hurry up since the bus trip to Berlin was leaving at 9:30 and we didn't have breakfast yet. We had a lot of fun during the 'citytrip', although our guide had not much to tell us about Berlin. During a stop, we wanted
to make a picture of our whole group in Berlin, so we asked a lady to take it. But everybody wanted the picture, so she was busy taking pictures for about five minutes :P.
When we came back we went to the hall to watch the competition. We were early so we watched photos first and Manfred from Germany took some photos with me. Barny gave us a calender with beautiful pictures.
We watched the finals and especially the Ukrainian routines were beautiful. After the competition, Lisette, Karen, Anna, me and Simone went almost immediately to the airport to fly back to Holland.
The group stayed for the banquet and left the next morning.