4.Japan
86.2(-3.8)
Dani’s beside me, still staring at it, and I turn to her. “It means nothing. We’re still in this. Beam and floor and we win. You got it?”
She nods. “I got you, Cap. I got you.”
I hope she does, because we’re headed to balance beam, where Olympic dreams go to die.
chapter nineteen
I’ve always been a great beamer, but today weallneed to be, with this hole we’ve dug for ourselves.
I open my eyes after visualizing my routine one last time and before turning to Emma. She still looks a little shaken after bars.
“Hey, you’ve got this. You are money on beam, and you’re going to nail this. Dani’s going to start us up, I’m gonna hit, and then you’re going to bring it home.”
She nods with my every word, her shoulders relaxing under my hands. “I can do this.”
“You totally can.”
We had to count her twelve on bars, when normally her score would be somewhere in the fifteens. We’re the best team in the world, but it’s not like those other teams are total wastes. They’re perfectly capable of hitting their routines, and so far, they have.
Dani’s up first, and her beam routine has been getting better and better every time I’ve seen her do it since trials.
Up on the podium, Dani salutes, and the crowd falls silent. There’s barely a sound in the arena except for the floor music of a Canadian athlete. Dani works through her beam routine, tumbling across it like most people walk on the ground. Where I dance on the beam, she attacks, moving through her routine in a way that old-school Romanian gymnasts used to: no hesitation, trick after trick, but seamlessly tied to her choreography, so much so you barely notice that she’s doing incredibly difficult gymnastics. Finally, she sets herself and launches into a roundoff and a double Arabian with a decent-sized hop on the landing.
“Nice!” I let myself shout, though I probably should have been focusing on my own beam routine instead of watching hers. I haven’t felt this good in competition in a long time. I’m used to having to find ways to distract myself from the pain, but the cortisone is doing a great job of masking that right now, so instead of reverting back to my pre-injury self and blocking everything out, I’m taking everything in.
I give Dani a fist bump as she passes me and waits for her scores. The crowd isn’t quiet anymore, a steady stream of “Da-ni! Da-ni!” reverberating from the stands until her score pops up: a 14.4. It’s super solid for her, but not quite her best. Still, it’s the kind of score I can build on.
The crowd is reacting to Stepanova’s routine, but I try my best to zone it out, running through my beam routine in my mind’s eye. I swing my arms, going through the motions of every section. Up to the beam, and then my turns, keeping them smooth and connected, aerial sequence, leaps, maintain rhythm, dismount, clean.
Just like in training, Audrey. Just like in Coronado, just like in quals.The crowd is applauding for Stepanova, and I open my eyes, finding Janet in front of me.
“You good?” she asks, and I nod, following her up the stairs, where she carries my springboard to the mat and I mark the beam with chalk for visual cues during the routine: a line for my aerial series and a line for where to set up for my dismount.
The green light flickers at me, and I move to the edge of the mat, narrowing my vision to the springboard Janet set up at the end of the beam. After a quick salute, I run to it, a roundoff, layout step-out onto the beam and then two more following it with no hesitation, traveling across nearly the entire length. I raise my arms to show the judges control, and then it’s like something clicks inside of me. It’s easy. I almost feel separated from my body, like I’m watching myself perform instead of actually working through the routine. My turn sequence is perfection, not a flicker in my knees, and then it’s a few more skills to the dismount, and I can hear my own heartbeat as I take a breath and settle myself and count out my dismount to my pulse: one, two, one, two, hands, feet, hands, feet, triple twist, land, stiiiick—okay, a small step, but still. That was good.
I salute the judges and let out a breath. That’s what I came here to do today. I hit bars. I hit beam. Now I can only watch.
My score is up quickly, a 15, and I nod in agreement with the judges, a rare feat. That routine was great, and I’m glad they knew it too.
“Nice job,” Emma says, squeezing my shoulders.
“Your turn,” I say, wiggling my fingers at her, and she does it right back.
