Level 5 State Meet 2019

Ally had her final meet of the season a few weeks ago.
It was not her highest scoring meet but I have never been so proud of her at a meet before.
It was states, and for states they divide up the girls by age group and schedule the all day meet into sessions based on age group. Ally is the oldest girl on her team so she competed by herself at 8:00am.
She really doesn't like to compete with out her team mates and was really nervous.

 

At home getting ready to go and below - trying to calm her nerves by listening to her play list in the car. 

We've had a lot of talks about the meet - fun is #1, doing her best is #2 and the scores and placement are #3 in priority. 

The thing is its hard to have tons of fun by your self and when you don't score well. So the pressure she was feeling was pretty intense. Add to that she Ally had not done a clean beam routine all season and she was stressed. 

 



































Warming up and marching in all by herself.

Her coach took this picture right before competition started.





















Vault 8.675
Bars 8.625
Beam 7.950
Floor 8.750
All Around 34.00

Her lowest score of the season on the final meet. States is tough here. Its the hardest judging of the year. Ally's coach said meets like this is part of why she gave up gymnastics as a competitor when she was younger - sometimes even if you have the best performance of your life / season. The judges don't agree and your scores are low. It can be frustrating. Ally was so relieved and happy to be done.
This level 5 was the end of what are known as compulsory levels - 3, 4, 5 are required in her track of gymnastics and every girl performs the exact same routine on all 4 apparatus.
Now that states are over she will compete level 6 next year and gets to design her own routines for beam and floor - and pick her own music. She is pretty excited.





















With her coach Vicky above.

Ally placed 6th on Floor was delighted with that one medal. As we left the awards a couple of coaches not affiliated with our gym were talking about a few gymnasts who were crying because of their low scores and lack of awards. They said state judging is extremely difficult and told Ally she should be very proud of her one medal.
She is.

And as soon as she got home she curled up with her kitten.