Meets, meets and more meets

Between ski weekends we have been attending meets . . . swim meets and gymnastics meets.  Sofia has been struggling with swimming and her times have been all over the place.  While she has had some races that she has added 11+seconds to her time I have to say I am proud of her.  She has been putting in a lot of effort.  Unfortunately when she puts in a LOT of effort her for
m falls apart.  At some point she will put it all together and she will start cutting down her times.  She has one meet left this weekend to make her cut time for championships but I do not expect her to make the cut.  She needs a little more time to pull things together.  I think it will be good for her to not make the cut because then she will get a break from swim meets for a while and I think she needs that break.


Ali has been doing great at her meets.  She went to the Brestyan's meet (home of Aly Raisman) and had a tough meet.  It was an early morning wake up at 5:45AM with a drive into Tufts.  She started on the beam.  It is a tough way to start and she fell from the beam.  It was her first meet fall.  It really shook her and she struggled on floor and vault.  I felt so bad for her and kept wishing she would shake it off.  She got to the bars and I watched her warm up and I didn't have much hope of her shaking off her fall but she surprised me.  She LOVES the bars and she rocked it.  She placed 1st on bars out of all 69 Level 3 girls at the meet. She finished and turned to me with a HUGE smile.  I was so happy for her!  After the meet we went to the awards ceremony and then headed back to the gym floor to meet Aly Raisman!  It was such a cook experience for Ali and a little embarrassing for me.  As Ali was standing there I kept saying, "Ali look at me, ALi at the camera Ali smile"  Then it occurred to me that HER name was ALY too!!  I quickly apologized and explained that I wasn't speaking to her and that she had a very nice smile.  A classic mom moment!!

 Here is a video of her bar routine from Brestyans.

Level 3 

At her next meet (which was this past weekend in Connecticut) Ali and her whole team rocked the meet.  The team placed 1st as did all levels from Elite except level 9 (placed 2nd)!  I'm still unclear to me what is the proper ranking for gymnasts since they make the awards based on level and age and not just on level 3 so I will give you the different options.  To me it would seem the age shouldn't matter since every kid competing at Level 3 must have the competency to move into a Level 3 team regardless of their age.  So, while she gets awarded based on her age division I like to know how she did regardless of age.

Intermediate age division session 7B
2nd All Around
1st Bars
2nd Floor
5th Vault
7th Beam

Level 3 Session B
4th All Around
1st Bars
3rd Floor
9th Vault
18th Beam

Level 3 All Sessions (about 190 girls from 34 teams) - This does not seem to be how anyone ranks because the sessions compete at different times of day and even on different days but I think it is interesting to see.
10th All Around
3rd Bars
7th Floor
Beam/Vault  - I don't know her place because they only list the top ten girls

Any way you look at it though she did awesome.  She works so hard every practice (13 hours a week) and has improved greatly since joining this gym.  It is nice to see all her hard work pay off for her.  The best part is that she is thoroughly enjoying gymnastics and her teammates and even after a three and a half hour practice she is bubbling with happiness.