Maaike, my mother and I went to Boston (USA) to take part in the Boston Invitational. There also was a week of training and social events before the competition.
We arrived in Boston with an hour delay. There were a lot of security checks before we could get on the plane,
so there was a really long row of people waiting there. When we almost got throug, we saw a lot of people coming out of
the plane; there was something wrong with the airconditioning in the plane so we had to move to another gate and start the
whole checking from the beginning. Someone interviewed us about our luggage. He asked if we had packed our bags ourselves and if
everything in it belonged to us, that kind of stuff. Maaike wanted to take a picture of it, but the guy got mad and he said that if
she had used a flash, he would have taken her camera. We still don't know why he was so upset about it...
While we were waiting for the plane to be cleaned, we met Anna Pobokova and her coach Ramona Stook, who had the same flight as we had.
I had never been on such a big plane before, it had two seats at each side and five (!) in the middle.
When we arrived, we met our host family and went to a restaurant, although we were not very hungry. There we met Anahi Sosa (National
Champion of Argentina) and Ada Moisescu and Zoë Davis, gymnasts of the organising club Rhythmic Dreams. Zoë was part of our host family too.
Our host family was really nice, they took us to a lot of places in Boston and everything was possible. When we arrived at their hause, we could mail
to our family and friends at home and they installed msn on their computer for us.
The difference in time between Holland and America is six hours, so in Holland time we went to bed pretty late the last night.
We expected to be awake really early in the morning, but we just slept through until eight o'clock or something American time.
On msn we spoke to some of the other gymnasts of SV Pax, it was really funny although we couldn't tell them much because we hadn't done anything yet.
At 10 o'clock we had a bruch at Smaranda's (organiser of the tournament) with Anna and Anahi and their coaches and our first training started at one.
The sports hall it pretty big, it is for athletics and in the middle is a basketball field where the carpets lay on.
Because we didn't have a coach, we had to train for ourselves mostly but it turned out pretty good. We had four hours training, one hour more than usually.
It was good to have some more time, we could spent some extra time to train our routines.
After the training we had dinner at the parents of Dan (father of our hostfamily). It was really delicious.
In the morning we went to Harvard University with Lisa, Zoë and Marc (all host family). The campus was big! We rubbed the
shoe of statue of Mr. Harvard, which is supposed to bring us good luck. In an art shop, we bought stones for on our leotards and I
bought paint to paint my ribbon.
In the training we got a warming-up by the coach of Anahi Sosa. It had really interesting things in it and I liked it very much. I only did my clubs routine
all the four hours long. While trainig the elements and stuff, everything went wrong, but on music it was good every time. Must be because Anahi wished me good luck.
Since we didn't had a coach, my mother brought our video camera and taped our routines so we could see what we were doing wrong. The third time I did clubs with music was the
best, but off course that one wasn't filmed because the batteries were empty... Maaike had the same with her hoop routine.
We also taped the routines of Anna and Anahi. Anahi has such a great routines! They're full with original and risky things with the apparatus and she has a fantastic expression.
I'm a fan!
Today we had social day, no training. We went to a giant aquarium with our host family and one other girl, Amy.
There were all kind of sea animals, including sea turtles, sharkes and sea dragons (a rare kind of sea horses).
We also went to the sea lion show. It was really cool, with sea lions standing on their hands and balancing spinning balls on their nose.
At the end of the show five kids were choosen to come and meet the sea lions. And Zoë and Marc were both choosen. Marc even got a kiss of the
sea lion.
For lunch, we went to Quincy Market. There was a long road with all kinds of food on both side. We just couldn't decide what we
wanted! Behind the food there were little stands with souvenirs and stuff. Maaike and I both bought a Boston sweater.
After that we went to a movie on I-Max screen, the screen was really huge. In the beginning of the movie you saw grass and you really could count
the different parts, it was like you were walking on it yourself. Really cool.
After the film we drove around and had a little sight seeing in Boston. We went to the Italian part and to Chinatown and a lot more places.
Today we did some shopping in Boston before training, including a fabrics store. We bought a beautiful black fabric with glitters on it for leotards,
and more stones.
In the training I did ribbon. I had to do it with music 6 times before I was satisfied with it. Luckily we had four hours for it! The gymnasts from
the Czech Republic arrived yesterday so today was their first training.
After the training we had a dinner party at the house of two gymnasts of the recreational team.
Today we didn't do anything before training. We slept late and watched the musical Cats until it was time to go.
There was training from 12 to 6 o'clock today, because all gymnasts participating in the competition would come.
We had the possibility to train from 12 to 3. When we arrived in the sports hall, we discoverd that there were basketball players
who would only leave at one o'clock... Until then we only had one carpet for about twenty people. It was really crowded!
After one o'clock the level nine and ten gymnasts moved to the other carpet to do music. They decided to change music recorders,
because the one we used the whole week had more cd desks and that wouldn't work easy in competition. We weren't really happy with that,
because we use tapes and the new one was a bit faster. But when we did the last round of music, that recorder got problems with the cd's too and they
changed again. I was doing hoop and halfway my routine I noticed that I was way to early. Then I listened and my music was going so slow, it was really boring
to listen to it. It was nice to do a routine like that, I could keep a balance for a while and then finish it easily without have to run through the whole routine.
I had almost 10 seconds of music left after the end of my routine... In the end they decided to use the first recorder, the one they used whole week so it turned out
perfectly for us!
At three o'clock we had to stop and a Canadian team got space on the carpet. First we trained our exhibition for the gala a bit, and after that we watched the others
training and I took some photos. The Canadians were really good.
After training we went to some huge American stores, they really impressed us, so big!
Competition today! Our competition started at half past three, so we went to the sports hall at one o'clock. They were behind the schedule, so we
could watch some routines of the juniors first.
There was a 'timed warm-up', the group was decided in groups of six or seven gymnasts and every group got 5 minutes on the
competition carpet.
The competition didn't go really good for me. In every routine I had mistakes or drops. Clubs was really stupid, the first half
of my routine was going so well and then I drop two really simple throws right after eachother. My ribbon routine was a disaster, in the beginning I had to throw the ribbon
away and grab the end of it but I was so afraid to let it all go that I grabbed it too early and I could get the stick back in the right way. I had to catch in a jump but by accident
I catch the stick between my knees....
Maaike did a very good ball routine, but in the end she just had to take the ball from one hand to the other during a jump with turn and the ball flew out of her hands of the carpet.
It costed a lot of time to recover it so she couldn't do her last two combinations. She had a very good hoop routine, but the score was really low. I'm not sure about her clubs and ribbon, I
believe they were okay but with small mistakes.
The award ceremony was really different than in Holland. Marching in was pretty official, every club had a sign with its name on it and stuff.
When everybody was on the carpet the speaker said: sit down, and all the gymnasts were sitting on the floor waiting for the scores... Their podium has six places instead of three, I liked that!
Maaike ended in tenth place all around and I was sixth. Anahi won the competition as expected and Anna got silver.
After the competition the banquet started imediately but we didn't knew that. Rhyhtmic Dreams coach Ionella was so kind to drive us home before we went to the hotel. The banquet was nice, there was
nice food and there were all kinds of small competitions organised where you could win a sweater of the tournament or a poster signed by Anahi.
Today Zoë had her AA competition (she's in level 7) so we went to watch her. She had a great competition, she only had some mistakes in ribbon. She ended on a second place.
Before the competition Maaike and I bought shorts for training that had the text I love Rhythmic Gymnastics on it. Really cool!
Maaike had a final with clubs and I had ball and ribbon. It was the first ribbon final in my life! Even in Holland I never made it into the finals with ribbon. It was really a surprise for me that I was in
it now, since it was my worst routine yesterday.
My ball routine went fine, I was really nervous perhaps that's why my legs where a bit shaky
during the whole routine but I didn't make big mistakes. I ended on a sixth place.
Maaike's clubs was good too, she was a little too late in the end so she couldn't finish the last move properly but she
did very good.
After my ball, I started to feel more for a ribbon final, before I thought I would surely ruin it. I was the first competitior with ribbon and I liked that,
this way I had the opportunity to watch Anahi and Anna competing. My ribbon went good! I think it was my best ribbon routine on a competition this year. I had to skip one artistic
bonus, but all the other things where quite good. I really felt happy about the apparatus finals. Maaike ended 9th with clubs and I ended 6th with ball and 8th with ribbon.
After the finals there was a gala, almost everybody prepared a exhibition. Maaike and I had a exhibition with red voiles. We were afraid we would drop them all the time, since we didn't
spent much time practicing it (we thought our routines were more important) but it went quite good.
After the competition we went to McDonald's with our host family and there was a pool party in the hotel where some gymnasts stayed. That was really nice,
there was a spa which was so hot that you could only go in very slow. Tom Theobald and Patrick Tower had brought their laptops so we watched the photos of the competition, they were very cool.
On Monday our plane would only go at half past six, so we could go shopping in a big mal in Boston.