august 24, 2017.
for the last 5 days we've been in australia, it's been pretty rocky. one day i'm very strong, and landing majority of my jumps, and the next i'm falling 95% of the day. i knew that i had to put all of that behind me, and do my best.
sasha's mom and my mom woke us up at 9.30am by banging on the door. sasha got up before i did, and opened the door for them. sasha threw a pillow on top of me, forcing me to wake up. we technically still had 4 hour and 30 minutes until the competition started, but they asked for us to get there at 12.00pm.
the schedule:
1 hour practice before hand: 12.30-1.30
ice resurface: 1.35-1.50
competition officially starts: 2.00pm
1st group warm up: 1.50-2.00
1st group competition: 2.05-3.00
2nd group warm up: 3.05-3.15
2nd group competition: 3.20-4.15
ice resurface: 4.20-4.35
BREAK
3rd group warm up: 5.25/5.35
3rd group competition: 5.40-6.25
ice resurface: 6.30-6.45
4th group warm up: 6.50-7.00
4th group competition: 7.05-7.50
ice resurface: 7.55-8.20
5th group warm up: 8.25-9.10
5th group competition: 9.15.10.00
sp awards: 10.30 ish
there is 25 competitors, 5 in each group, 5 groups total.
i was in the third group, number 18, and sasha was number 19.
the entire morning i was nervous. i avoided all food, and water. ( team tutberidze girls aren't allowed to have any water on completion days.)
my mom helped me do my practice hair, and packed everything i would need for the competition, including lots of make up, hair spray, hair ties, bobby pins, hair gel, off ice spinner, tights ( 3 pairs), advil, my stuffed animal, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, training clothes and comfy clothes to change into.
i put on my costume, and headed into the rink with everyone else.
sasha and i got on the ice and did our normal routine. we practiced all the elements in our program five times.
in my program today i had 3 jumps,
3A
3Lz+3Lo
3 F
all the jumps in my program were rock solid, as well as my spins.
since i felt confident, i just started working on edges and sequences. i wanted to make sure everything was a level 4 (lv4), or i would loose points.
LEVELS OF DIFFICULTY IN FIGURE SKATING.
in fs, you can have a level 1,2,3, or 4 difficulty.
1. minimum variety
2. simple variety
3. variety
4. complex variations including difficult turns, change of foot ( in spin) speed, rotations ( in spin), edge change ( in spin and sequence), and so much more.
full isu explanation:
https://www.isu.org/inside-isu/isu-communications/communications-archives/21211-2254-s-p-levels-of-difficulty-and-guidelines-for-marking-goe-2019-20/file
sergei and daniil assured me that i was doing everything right, but i was still so nervous.
there was about an 15 minutes left in the pratice but i knew i had to stop skating. if i stayed, i probably have made everything worse, not better. i skated to the coaches, and talked with them the rest of the ice time. with 10 minutes left sasha joined us, and we walked to the locker room, and i changed from my costume into my comfy sweat pants, and a sweatshirt that matched with sasha and many other girls. it had the russia flag on the front and in the left corner, our names. on the back it read,
" слава страны в ваших руках."
"сборная россии по фигурному катанию 2017"
( the country's glory is in your hands)
and under that it says,
( russian national figure skating team
2017)
we had just under 4 hours until our competition session. sasha and i tried to calm our nerves by walking around the rink, over 200 times. the nice thing about this rink was there was an observation deck on top so you could walk on the track above, and watch the competition.
sasha and i tried to keep each other preoccupied by joking around, and talking about what america was like, instead of worrying about how we would do.
sasha joined the team last year, 2016, and i was very excited. before that, there wasn't many younger girls, so i was so excited to finally have one my age. when i first met sasha she was super intimidating. once we got to know each other we were inseparable.
a few months later, daria usacheva, who was 2 years younger than us joined the team. i absolutely love dasha. she is so kind and hardworking. if daria notices me crying she always comes to comfort me, and i do the same for her. in a pratice each skater cries more than one time. the coaches don't like when we cry since it's a sign of weakness, but sometimes i don't want to be strong, i just want to cry, and so does everyone else.
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YOU ARE READING
training under eteri
General Fictionin 2012, anastasia pankova joins the infamous team tutberidze. her dream of becoming an olympic figure skater is so close, but will her teammates pass her in the race to the olympics? will all her hard work amount to nothing?
