Personal Narrative-IAIGC Gymnast

Ahhhhh, Florida, Orlando to be exact. Peaceful, calming, stress-free right? Yes! Unless it’s June and you’re a USAIGC / IAIGC gymnast, one named Nicolette Davidson to be exact. After a nice and relaxing day at Disney with my teammates and coaches, it was time to compete, and nerves were running as high as NYC skyscrapers. As all 20 of us were getting ready, we got out nice little coach pep-talk from our coaches, Tim and Tammy, who I’ve known since I was a mere gymnastics baby, a two year old level one. Tim was in a blindingly bright purple tuxedo and Tammy was in an absolutely drop-dead gorgeous red dress, a humongous change from their usual athletic gear, for they lost a bet saying that if we all qualified for nationals they would dress up. I looked up at the clock and saw the dreaded time; 8:00 AM. “Time to leave!” I shouted over our blasting playlist of everything from Lady Gaga to Lil Pump. You could almost feel the nerves go up. We shouted our pre-meet chant loud enough for the whole world, “GFTG! GFTG! GFTG! GFTG! GO GOLD!” and we were on our way. As I walked into the arena, I noticed the overwhelming smell of popcorn with a lingering smell of feet and sweat. “Yup, definitely at nationals,” I said to myself, doing a little mental check. My team went to check in and got

For ten GFTG girls (our other ten were on a different event) and the two gyms we were sharing our rotations with, Chow’s Gymnastics and Extreme Gymnastics USA, it was off to bars. Of course, of the 26 amazing girls in this rotation, my dorky self was up first for competition. I mean, there really wasn’t anything to complain about. The bars were perfectly chalked, but this is my worst event. As I examined the bar, I could already see myself falling on my back during my Tkatchev, not catching my Jaeger, and over rotating my