Meeting a Gold Medalist

The Ally's new gym is much bigger and much better organized than her old gym. Last week they had a event to meet Nastia Luiken. Nastia was the gold medal all around champion at the 2008 Bejing Olympics. She lives in Boston now and came to the gym to promote a gymnastics app she is piloting. She gave a short motivational speech and then answered questions. At the end there was a photo and autograph opportunity.

Ally read on the car ride to the gym.

It was pretty cool to be there. She talked about her gymnastics career and inspirational times in her life. She told the girls she won 5 medals in Bejing:

1 Gold Individual All Around

2 Silver Team 

3 Silver Uneven Bars 

4 Silver Balance Beam

5 Bronze Floor 

Some words of wisdom I wrote down: 

"You can't quit on a bad day. Have to wait for a good day." Nastia said her mom would tell her that whenever she wanted to quit. 

Your life is more than gymnastics. Your whole life should be good and awesome not just gymnastics.

Ally asked Nastia "what do you like to do in your free time" 

The answer was "spend time with family and friends. Journaling and being outdoors because I'm inside the gym so much."

I was so proud of Ally for asking a question. 

We learned Vault was Nastia's least favorite event! The running, the handspring all of it!!! And then she talked about how she liked beam and bars the best. Ally was pretty thrilled to hear this because vault is her least favorite too. 

It was a fun hour and well worth the drive to the gym on a non-practice day.