Sunday, January 22, 2017

2nd Meet of the Season!!!

Ally placed 4th All Around at today's meet with a score of 36.2
Vault 8.85
Bars 9.0 
Beam 9.1
Floor 9.25 

Kind of ironic since that is what they announced her as last week, but there was a mistake. We are pretty confident there was not another mistake today. 


In the car as we left home. It was a rough drive at the end. Ally tends to get nervous the longer the drive is. Then we get there, she goes to the bathroom and calms down. She is like super calm and focused after that.

Today we bought the photo package which had professional pictures of floor and beam and videos of each. Becky is doing another meet compilation video.


Warming up.



Lined up and waiting for National Anthem to play.

1st event Vault.

No pictures from bars. It was pretty and Ally scored higher than last week which was great.

Beam was next:


















She did great! Next and last event Ally's favorite, floor:

Her concentration is amazing.

And she is so in the zone her eyes are closed as she focuses on the music and her moves.






Such leaps!





And her stretched out so straight body position.



Another split jump leap.




Split on the floor.

Her long fingers in precise formation.
This next series is Ally's round off back handspring. I've never seen it in still pictures. 
Round off 





Arching for back handspring.


Looking at the floor as her body flips in the air.

Handspring as she leaps to her feet. 


She was spectacular. Lower score than last week. But still beautiful and she won 1st place on this event!!! 


The meet lasted about 65 minute then on to awards.

4th on bars

5th on beam. I like that Ally and her opponent who placed 3rd shook hands.



1st on floor.




Another handshake.

And her team placed 3rd.

Ally was again pretty tired afterwards. All she wanted was cereal to eat, so we stopped at Target and she munched on Fruit Loops the whole way home, and then ate 4 small pieces of cheese pizza when we got home with a glass of chocolate milk. She's settled in on the couch watching TV. 

No meet next weekend, which will be nice, and then it's a Friday night meet on February 3.

Ally says she loves it. That is what matters. 
As long as it's fun. 

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

First Place!!!!

Well as it turns out there was an error on Ally's score card from the meet and she really scored a 9.05 on the beam!!! That makes her overall score a 36.9 which means she scored the highest. We know this because her teammate was awarded first place and her teammate's AA score was 36.55.

Ally and we are a bit bummed by the whole thing. We found out Monday night when her coach handed out the score cards the judges fill out. We immediately noticed her beam score was a full point higher than was posted at the meet. Turns out someone entered her score wrong in the computer. The computer displays the score on the score board and then tallies up the total. A person then enters the total from the computer on the card.

We added up the card and it was higher than shown.

We emailed Ally's coach and she apologized, and said it does happen sometimes that someone makes a mistake. She apologized and said she would make an announcement at practice so Ally would get some recognition from her peers, and the host gym of the meet is sending Ally a 1st place trophy.

Ally is seems pleased with the outcome, but still bummed that it happened. Alice's mom said it well to me today "These life lessons are so hard.  How to be gracious about the mistake but also fight for recognition" and accept the mistake. Ally is really mostly happy to have scored so well. A 36.9 is an amazing score.

But then, she is an amazing kid who this evening spent an hour on her mats and practice beam in our living room.

 

 
Playing a game with Becky before practice on Monday. (It was a school Holiday.) Ally is wearing the leotard she received at the meet. All the girls on the team wore them.

 
Movie star gymnast on the way to practice.