Last night, my teammates and I finished competing in the team meet at the Japan Cup.  Even though there were several highlights throughout the meet (big props to Horton and Steve Legendre for landing their vaults after their funky blocks off the table), the US team had one too many miscues that really cost us in the end.  In a 3-up, 3-count event, where all three scores count per event, there is definitely zero room for error.  While we can continue to get down on ourselves for the mistakes we made, we are going to take this experience to make us stronger and perform better in future competitions.  Aside from Jon and myself, none of the other team members have been in a international senior team meet.  That said, we’re definitely a very young team and have a lot of potential to grow.  If you look at the difficulties that we put up on each event, we’re just as good as the strongest teams in the world.  We just need to go back to our own gyms and focus on refining our gymnastics, as well as putting the pressure on ourselves day in and day out to make sure that we hit our routines when it counts.

As for me, I competed three events yesterday (pommel horse, rings, and high bar).  Pommel horse didn’t go as well as I had hoped.  I ended up falling which was rather unusual for me considering I’ve been pretty consistent during my practices.  I guess it just goes to show how mentally tough you have to be in a 3-up, 3-count format.  This is another major thing that I will take from this competition and something I will  build on once I get back home.  The next event, Rings, went pretty well.  Despite having a sore shoulder, my strength was pretty good and I stuck the landing.  My last event, high bar, was definitely the most interesting event.  Everything was going really well until the dismount when I hyper-extended my knee (yea I know, big bummer).  Somehow I managed to stick the dismount, which was a good thing, but I had to be carried off the podium by my coaches.

getting carried off...

Anyway, we’re all hoping that it’s nothing serious but we won’t know for sure until I get back to the states and get some images taken.  As for the pain, it’s not too bad but the knee is definitely a bit stiff being that I injured it just yesterday.  That said, I’m hoping that I can get back to training as soon as possible.  If not, I’ll definitely use this experience in the most positive way possible and treat this as an opportunity to train my upper-body.  The sport of gymnastics is full of injuries but no way is my knee gonna slow me down from getting stronger.  It’s crazy how injuries always make me more motivated!

Later on, the US delegation will go cheer on the guys (Danell and Steve) who’ll be competing in the all-around competition.  It’ll definitely be an exciting meet.  Even though I’ll be sitting in the stands this time, I’ll take this opportunity to soak in everything and use it as motivation for when I get back to training in my own gym!