The steadily increasing wave of vocal support fades almost instantly to a reverent hush, just ambient music in the background, but even that seems to dissipate, the squeak of the bars overpowering it.
Dani releases the high bar and then catches again, a Tkatchev, and then flips between the bars, but when she catches the low bar, her momentum just stops. She caught it too close. It’s not a fall, but it’s … it’s bad. She adjusts her grip briefly and then creates her own momentum again, pushing off the low bar and swinging down below it. Moments later, she’s flying back up to the high bar and swinging around for her dismount, one, two, three, into a perfect double layout. A decent save, but damage done.
She salutes the judges and jogs down from the podium to us, ripping at her grips as she goes. I want to go to her, but I can’t. I still have to compete. Chelsea sits with her on the chairs lining the arena’s walls, and I flinch when I turn away and catch her score.
13.7.
Ouch.
This is starting to feel like a pattern. Dumb fluke errors happen sometimes, but three in a row, first Brooke, then Chelsea, and now Dani? Swallowing back the slowly building panic in my chest, I look up at Emma, who’s at the bars now.
A green light, a salute, and she’s swinging back and forth, up and down, around and over the bars. It’s a perfectly choreographed dance, not a toe out of a place, not a flicker in her elbows or knees.
She lands her double layout, sticking with ease, her arms flying up to salute. Then she turns and claps at the hit routine before jumping down from the podium and heading right for me.
“You got this, Rey! C’mon!” she practically screeches, and we high-five, sending out a small cloud of chalk.
That’s what we needed: our best gymnast to get us going in the right direction. And now I’m going to be even better.
I lift my arms up over my head and rotate them around once, twice, three times before swinging them back and forth as I approach the bars.
Janet and Emma chalk them just the way I like, a fine layer, just enough to grip without it clumping up and bugging me while I swing.
“Let’s go, Audrey,” Janet says quietly when Emma’s score is posted, a 15.1. And then I’m alone.
“On uneven bars for the United States of America, Audrey Lee!”
I don’t hear the crowd. I don’t hear anything. My eyes are focused on one thing only, the light at the corner of the podium. It blinks from red to green. Facing the judges, I salute, one arm up, the other out to the side with a flourish, and then I begin.
Each skill flows into the next: low bar up to high, back down to low, grips scraping over the fiberglass, catching and releasing with precision, my core holding strong on the handstands, knees, toes, and elbows perfectly aligned. I reach and grasp and catch, then swing up and around, a pirouette, landing right in handstand and then down again, releasing and rising up in the air, one, two, three twists and I land, my knees bending just slightly, but that’s it. I rise up, arms in the air, and the sound erupts around me, pulling me back into reality.
I salute the judges and then race off the podium. The girls are waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs with high fives and fist bumps.
“Let’s go!” I yell, and I get five answering nods before we break away, grabbing our bags as we prepare to rotate.
Balance beam is next, and we’re gonna own it.
The Klaxon sounds and we march to the beam. I pull at my grips and as I do, my eye catches one of the scoreboards.
ALL-AROUND QUALIFICATIONS
1.Audrey Lee
15.3
