Baby May

Training

This chapter contains mentions of body image worries.

January 1999

Christmas passed quickly and the new year went with it. Now the second week of January and it's Alyssia and Victoria's first professional training session.

Tonight is all about working out a plan going forward so Brian and Anita have to go with Alyssia, Victoria's mum will be joining too.

The girls sit together between their parents. When Katie arrives she gets straight to it, "So I've worked out a training plan for you girls to work around school, I'll get to that in a moment but let me mark out the route to the world championships and the Olympics. You girls might want to make some notes."

Alyssia and Victoria pull out their notebooks to write everything down, "Starting today we are working towards the first competition in August which is regionals. You girls will enter as advanced novice level due to your skill level, the top five from each discipline advance directly to novice nationals in October, if you're not in the top five then you go to novice sectionals in September. Top five at Novice nationals go directly to junior sectionals the year after, regionals if you're the five below them."

"At junior sectionals, top five from each discipline go to junior nationals, anyone else has to wait till the next year and try again. If you do go to junior nationals and are in the top five, you advance directly to senior sectionals, the five below them go to senior regionals. Anyone who doesn't get in the top ten can retry at the junior level the next year."

"Senior-level regionals top five from each discipline advance to sectionals, anyone else can retry at senior level regionals the next year. If you get through to sectionals, top five from each discipline advance to nationals, the five below them retry at senior sectionals the next year."

"Now senior-level nationals is where the officials create their world team, so Team GB," That perks up the girl's ears, "Top three from each discipline join the world team for the next world championships, anyone in fourth or fifth place will be on the official's books a reserve if one of the top three should drop out. Any world team skater that achieved gold, silver or bronze in the last world championships will also come back as part of the world team. If you make it to the world team you will go to senior nationals every year to maintain your spot, the year before the Winter Olympics you will compete at nationals to make it on to the Olympic team."

Katie takes a breath, smiling at how confused the parents look, "I know that was a lot of information but does that make sense?" Anita can feel a headache forming from all that information.

The girls finish writing, "I think so," Victoria answers.

"What do we have to do at each competition?" Alyssia asks wanting to know more.

"You have to complete two segments at each competition, one short programme, which is a minimum of two minutes maximum of two minutes and thirty seconds and a free skate sometimes called the long programme, which is a minimum of four minutes maximum five minutes."

After taking a drink of water, Katie tells their schedules, "You two will train together, for the most part, however, I do want two sessions a month to focus on each of you separately. So joint sessions are every Thursday an hour and a half after school and Saturday morning for two hours. Separate sessions are the first week and last week of each month, Lissy, yours are on a Tuesday, Vicky, yours are on a Wednesday, both of those are hour sessions."

"You girls do understand the commitments?" Victoria's mum, Jodie, questions them.

"I'm glad you brought that up," Katie agrees with the question, "These sessions are going to take up a lot of your time, so if you don't feel like you can commitment say now?"