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FREEDOM CUP 2005 - THE GYMNAST’S DIARY!

As you know we try to include new and original ideas here on Gymnastics Online. So I asked the Harrow girls to keep a diary of their trip and their thoughts on the Freedom Cup International. They were competing alongside members of the USA National Team, and gymnasts who had appeared in the World Cup and World Age Games.

I’m sure many of you who have been on gym competitions away from home will especially enjoy this as it includes all the great social as well as competitive parts of a big competition. And I hope you all enjoy the diary and photos from the gymnast’s themselves!

And don’t miss our great report at the bottom of the page as our English Acrobats claim 6 Gold Medals! 

Harrow at the Hard Rock Cafe in Washington where they performed their balances in front of the whole Restaurant as everyone clapped and cheered the British gymnasts.

Monday 14^th November

We arrived at Heathrow at 8 am.  We were all really excited. Poppy and Laura (9 year olds) had never flown before and were going away without their parents. It was a long wait before boarding the plane so we decided to entertain everyone and ourselves by putting on a gymnastics display. We even had a handstand hold competition on the flat elevator. But we got told off before we got to the end.

The flight was really good and long. Tasha thought that it would be a good idea to do some homework instead of watching some of the in flight entertainment. The food was good apart from the children’s chocolate covered fruit.   We were all worried about sleeping as Tasha was drawing hearts and smiley faces using red lipstick on anyone who fell asleep.

When we arrived in Baltimore we had to wait for a while. Yet again we lifted everyone spirits by a handstand walking competition around the airport.  We then went to hotel, had a few problems with the rooms (Ciara went to her room to find there were some American gymnasts already in it).  We then went to training  - it was now 1:30 am in British time but that didn’t stop Tasha.

We got back ,had a meeting (one of many),  had dinner and collapsed in bed.

Tuesday 15^th November

We got to breakfast for 6:45 as we had training at 8am.  Training went really well and then we went back to the hotel to unpack, have lunch, do an hour of homework and relax before the evening training session.  The evening sessions were good – we spent most of the time polishing each others routines.

Wednesday 16^th November

Training was in the afternoon but Tasha came up with a plan to get up at the same time as the day before to watch the American’s train.  It was really good seeing different stretching and conditioning exercises and Tasha had a smile on her face the whole session. (Whenever she has a smile on her face we know that she has found or thought of new more difficult exercises for training).  We trained in the afternoon with the Australians, Chermond from England & the Welsh squad.  After that we had fun in the swimming pool. Grace tried to do a backbend & scraped her nose and face.  She’s still got the scars now.

Dinner was at the training/competition venue.  Poppy is a vegetarian but does not eat many vegetables. She sees to have survived on sweetbread rolls and grated cheese for the whole time we were in America.

Training in the evening was tiring but again we worked on polishing routines. We collapsed in bed knowing that Thursday was competition day.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday

COMPETITION DAYS. We had training in the morning followed by some homework, lunch and a sleep.

The competition was on three days with the Saturday being the finals.  We all did really well and finished the competition with 4 golds, a silver, a bronze and a fifth place.  The senior trio also won the Balance and Tempo final.

It was an amazing competition. We became friends with all the competitors from the different countries and their coaches. The Americans were lovely and we had lots of chats about different words they used.

Saturday night was fantastic.  The closing party was in a huge complex that had different floors with bowling alleys, dance areas, bars and an amusement arcade. All the gymnasts were given cards which meant that they could go on any arcade games for free. The bowling was hilarious. None of us or the Americans could bowl bar a few.  We even tried rolling the ball down a leaning handstand so as to get it rolling straight but that obviously didn’t work. The food was lovely and the non alcoholic drinks were free.  At 10 pm we went to dance and had even more fun there. While we were there we gave out and were given presents.

When we got back to the hotel we carried on chatting for a few hours.  It was the first night that we weren’t told what time we had to go to bed.  At 1:15 am Tasha and Ruth walked into all the rooms very cross that we were not asleep so we quickly went to bed.

Sunday

Excursion Day.

Had a late breakfast and then made our way by the metro into Washington. We got there too late to go up the Washington monument. Tasha had told us that we had to write a diary about the day with lots of facts in it. Hannah & Jo cheated. They made a video diary! They went up to one of the Sheriff’s to ask about what the monument was about. All of us then started doing gymnastics around the area and the Sheriff came up to us and asked us if we wanted to go up the monument. So we did. While we were waiting we decided to do some partner balances which attracted another audience.  We had a great time in the monument looking at all the views of Washington.

We then went to the air and Space museum and then to the White House.

For dinner we went to the Hard Rock Café.  It was the most memorable evening of the whole trip.  The manager found out that the booking was for a team of gymnasts from England.  This lead to asking us to do some tricks. Erin did a free cartweel, Grace did a standing tuck back which then ended up with everyone performing all their competition balances in front of everyone at the restaurant.  Everyone was clapping and cheering.  People were hanging over the balconies to watch us. It was such a confidence boost.  The manager awarded us all with badges and cookies and Tasha with some Hard Rock café shorts and Kelly our other coach with a teddy.  We then went to Ben & Jerry’s for an ice cream. We then went back to the hotel.

Monday 21^st November

We had training in the morning as we had the British Tournament that weekend coming. WOW the competition hall was turned back into a working gym. It was huge. The American’s do everything s o big and well compared to us in Great Britain.  We just wanted to play on all the equipment (which we were allowed to do for 10 minutes at the end of the session). We could have fitted triple of our club into their training hall.

After training we went to a shopping mall to buy lots of things. Then some of us went to watch Harry Potter.  By the time we came out of the cinema it was time to go to the hotel and get ready for the flight home.

The flight home was good as we all slept to try to get us back into the English time zone as quickly as we can. We arrived home at 8:30Tuesday morning and a lot of us went back to school.

In conclusion, two words come to mind about the trip – WOW and WICKED. We spent a week in an amazing place, with amazing people and had a amazing time and feel that we have made many long lasting friends.

We had a Wednesday evening session and then a Thursday morning training session before we left to go to the British Tournament.  We were still all exhausted but were in high spirits from the week in America.  It made such a difference to our team morale by the trip away.  We had a great time at the British Tournament leaving with 3 gold medals, a silver, a bronze and a fourth place.

Now it’s back to reality and more hard training for the next set of competitions after Christmas.

  The girls at the Washington Monument.

All photos are copyright and must not be reproduced without permission. 

 GREAT INTERNATIONAL LINE UP AS ENGLISH ACROBATS WIN 6 GOLD MEDALS! 

English Acrobats produced superb results at the Freedom Cup in Washington winning a total of 6 Gold and 2 Silver medals with Wales also claiming 1 Gold and 2 Silver medals in a 5 Nation International.

A strong line-up included a 57 strong delegation from USA Gymnastics which included six members of the USA National Acrobatic Squad, plus gymnasts from Australia, Kazhakstan and Puerto Rico.

The six members of the US Senior national team were Mixed Pair Clare Brunson and Michael Rodrigues of Livermore, Calif, Men’s Pair Julian Amaro and Tyler Spray of Livermore, Calif, Mixed Pair Andre Solodar  and Xiau-Ling Wee of Monte Sereno, Calif. Earlier this year, the mixed pair duo of Brunson and Rodrigues, the reigning US national champions, won the Machuga Cup in Krasnodar, Russia, and placed fourth at the World Games in Duisburg, Germany. Solodar and Wee finished behind Brunson and Rodrigues at the 2005 U.S. Championships. Amaro and Spray are the current U.S. men's pair champions.

The competitors from Kazakhstan included the men's pairs team of Yevgeniy Drozdov and Rafael Aliyev, who were third at the World Cup event in Puurs, Belgium, and fourth at the World Games in Duisburg, Germany. The event also featured Gaukhar Akhmetova and Alexandra Yenina, who were part of the women's group that earned a bronze medal at the 2005 World Games. .

Harrow School of Gymnastics, Chermond, Oxford and a Welsh Team represented the U.K. at the Freedom Cup and were certainly not overawed by the big names as they produced very polished routines and demonstrated the strength of the British Acrobatic program on the U.S. stage. A great atmosphere produced top class performances in front of a terrific crowd with great support from the Puerto Rican and American fans with that unique Acrobatics backing from the English Teams.

Harrow had a great team performance winning Gold Medals in every event which they entered with Gold’s in the Senior Women’s Groups All Around, Balance & Dynamic Finals, as well as the Junior Women’s Pairs and Groups plus the AGACC Women’s Pairs. A Silver medal in the Junior Women’s Pairs rounded off a terrific performance. Oxford also won a Silver medal in the AGACC Women’s Group with Wales winning Gold in the Junior Mixed Pairs and Silver in the Senior Women’s Groups.

The USA did not disappoint as the members of the National Team and US Clubs claimed a total of 8 Gold Medals, 7 Silver and 2 Bronze medals with Kazaksthan also winning Gold in the Men’s Groups’ All Around, Balance and Dynamic plus the Men’s Pairs Junior Finals.

A wonderful competition and a great example of International competition bringing out the best in our Acrobats and new friendships between Clubs and Countries. It captures the whole spirit of Acrobatics around the World perfectly and great credit goes to the Organisers, Clubs, Gymnasts and Coaches - Roll on next year! 

 CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE GREAT PHOTOS FROM THE FREEDOM CUP

CLICK HERE FOR ALL THE RESULTS FROM THE FREEDOM CUP!