I awoke with a start, my mom shaking me. I looked over at the clock, seeing that it was already 6:30 AM. I crawled out of bed, feeling more and more nervous for the upcoming event that would be taking place in the matter of an hour. I quickly got dressed in my long sleeved black and green leotard, bouncing on the balls of my feet as an attempt to release my excitement. After I ate and we were all ready to go, we checked out of the hotel and left for my last gymnastics competition of the season.

Once we walked into the building, I could feel my nerves rise higher than before. After walking only a short while, we came to a door with a sign above it that read, “Level 6 Gymnastics State Competition!”

As we walked through the door, I could feel my stomach churning with fear and anticipation.

The room I had just entered was huge and had an abundance of sparkly decorations, as well as all four events, floor, vault, and bars. I immediately started looking for my coaches and after only a few scans across the large room, I found them. None of my other teammates were competing with me because I was the only one in the 11 year old age division. My coaches were all the way across the big blue platform made for the floor event. I hastily said goodbye to my mom and sister and ran across the springy floor to my coaches.

After a quick warm up and stretch, I headed off to my first event, bars.

I grabbed my grips out of my black and green duffle bag and hurriedly put them on, ready to start the timed bars warm up. The timer started and I quickly spread chalk onto my hands and grips. After the warm up, I saluted the judges, wanting to get the routine over with so that I could stop worrying. I jumped from the springboard and grabbed the bar to start my routine. Then, finishing the routine off with a flyaway off of the bar, I stuck the landing and earned a score of 9.0.

I took my grips off and moved on to my next event, beam. I waited for a while and then started my next warm up. Getting on the beam, I swiftly started to practice my skills. First I did a few back walkovers, then a few jumps. Next I had to practice my full turns. I prepped myself for the turn, and then rapidly started to spin. But about halfway through the turn, I slipped. I fell from the beam, heart pounding as I felt the beam push into my ribs painfully.

I lay on the floor, the wind knocked out of me, tears starting to well up in my eyes and stream down my face. I could feel someone lift me up and ask if I was okay. I was unable to answer, now finally able to breathe in deep gasps. They started helping me over to onto a long soft table, like one you would lay on in a doctor’s office. They lightly pressed onto my ribs, making me wince in pain. Luckily they told me that nothing had been broken, I had just bruised my ribs. It felt painful to even breathe, and I knew that I would have to scratch beam, or possibly the whole rest of the competition, which sent my tears down even faster.

So, with help, I walked over to beam, scratched, and as expected, got a 0.0 as my beam score. Now I knew that I could no longer place in all-around. My coaches asked if I wanted to scratch the other events as well, but I refused. I would just have to try my best to place in the remaining events, floor and vault.

I competed my floor routine with struggle, but still received a modest 8.3 score. I didn't expect to do this well, and this score was a pleasant surprise for me.

Then I moved onto vault and scored a 9.4! I proudly took fifth place in vault and received a medal. I left the competition feeling a little disappointed, but overall elated that I had decided to carry on with the competition and had earned a vault medal.