Читать книгу Somersaults and Dreams: Going for Gold - Cate Shearwater - Страница 7

CHAPTER

Two

Ellie was right. She was used to gruelling conditioning sessions at the Academy, but this was worse than anything even the pre-Elite coach Oleg Petrescu could come up with. Back and forth across the floor they went – wheelbarrow walks, handstand walks, forward rolls, pikes to handstands, then forward rolls into back tucks. Over and over with no let-up whilst Vivian called out things like, ‘No wiggling . . . you think you’re a worm now? Keep those hips up, or do you need a hip replacement? Tuck your butt under . . . you ain’t twerking now, ladies!’

‘She’s not big on compliments, is she?’ asked Bella breathlessly at the end of one set, looking at Ellie with a concerned expression on her face.

‘She is a bossy-shoes, I think!’ Katya managed to whisper.

‘Bossy-boots!’ giggled Ellie.

‘Hey, Trengilly, stop gassing and let’s step it up a gear!’ Vivian yelled.

Ellie blushed and launched into a new series of continuous split leaps, pushing up off the ground to get as much height as possible.

‘Open . . . open, Trengilly,’ Vivian yelled. ‘Come on, you’re not even trying. You can get higher than that, can’t you?’

Ellie gritted her teeth and dug even deeper. She’d always been incredibly good on flight work and she knew her split leaps had elevation and line that the other gymnasts envied, but all Vivian said at the end was, ‘Shame you didn’t point your toes.’

Ellie felt herself flush even brighter red. She was sure she had been pointing her toes the whole way through. She bit her lip and carried on with the next sequence, a forward roll into a back tuck.

Only Vivian wasn’t finished with her.

‘C’mon! You’re not in the boxing ring, Ellie! . . . Point those toes! Tighter legs, tighter body, longer neck . . . higher, higher, higher!’

‘Wow, she’s got it in for you,’ said Scarlett as the warm-up came to an end and the girls congregated round the lockers, glugging down water and pulling off their leggings ready for apparatus work.

Blonde and glamorous Scarlett had never been Ellie’s greatest fan. Nancy called her ‘Queen of Mean’ and reckoned that Scarlett hated anyone with talent – which was probably why Ellie was top of her hit list! She certainly seemed to be enjoying watching Ellie squirm under Vivian’s constant criticism now.

‘What did you do to bug our new coach, I wonder?’ said Kashvi, glancing at Ellie in concern. Kashvi stood with her hands on her hips, face creased into a frown.

‘I guess not everyone is a fan of the name Trengilly,’ said Scarlett, still smirking as she took a swig of water out of a pink jewel-encrusted bottle which bore the motto ‘Star Gymnast’.

‘What?’ Ellie wanted Scarlett to explain what she had meant, but she’d already turned away. Vivian clapped her hands to hurry them all along.

‘Come on, Trengilly,’ she said. ‘Less chit-chat and a bit more commitment to training.’

Ellie glanced around. Niamh and Rosa were still putting their water bottles away. Phoebe was looking for her guard bag and Bella and Kashvi were talking. Why was Vivian singling her out?

As they started apparatus work, things got worse. Ellie was put in a team with Eva, Memory, Scarlett and Katya. They were up on the vault first, which meant they were working with Vivian. She took them down to the pitted area, a side gym with high brick walls and a window looking out over the woods. It was filled with every kind of apparatus imaginable, sunk in large pits filled with foam logs.

‘Like big soft cushions,’ Katya sighed when she saw them. ‘So we are not crackling any bones!’

‘When you’re working on new skills you want to work on soft surfaces,’ Vivian told them. ‘So, we’ll start out in the pit and safety mats now, then as we get closer to Euros we’ll go back to competition surfaces.’

Ellie felt a flutter of excitement. If she could master a new vault with a higher difficulty value it could really raise her all-around score. Barbara Steele wanted to see potential – this could be Ellie’s chance to show she had it.

‘Will you teach us the Produnova?’ asked Memory quietly. A slight American twang was mixed with her low Scottish burr. It was the first thing Ellie had heard her say all morning.

‘Yes, that would be amazing!’ said Eva, the tall, smiley-faced British Junior Champion. ‘Only four people in the world can perform a Produnova.’

‘Because it is super-dooper difficult,’ said Katya.

‘It carries a seven difficulty value,’ muttered Memory, staring at the floor as she spoke.

‘Nobody is learning the Produnova,’ said Vivian sharply. ‘It’s a dangerous vault that should be banned.’

‘But didn’t you do it?’ asked Scarlett. ‘At World Champs – and the Olympics.’

‘And then I stopped performing it,’ snapped Vivian, her tone of voice making it clear that this conversation was over.

‘Can we at least work on Amanars?’ asked Scarlett, a hint of a whine in her voice.

‘Some of you don’t yet have the power for the more complex vaults,’ said Vivian, looking each of them up and down. ‘Memory – you can try for an Amanar. Eva and Scarlett – I want to see you working towards two and a half Yurchenkos. Katya, I believe you are still a vault novice, so you and Ellie should stick to the single twist.’

‘But . . .’ Ellie started to say.

‘You’re lacking in the upper body strength for the more difficult vaults, Trengilly,’ said Vivian firmly.

Ellie wanted to protest, to tell Vivian she was close to perfecting a double Yurchenko, but Vivian had already started walking away. ‘Go measure up then we’ll get started.’

‘Wow, she doesn’t leave much room for discussion, does she?’ said Eva, seeing how disappointed Ellie looked. ‘Don’t worry – when she sees how well you vault, she’ll soon change her mind.’

Ellie smiled, hoping Eva was right.

Before they could begin, the girls had to measure their run ups and mark the start point with chalk. Then the springboard had to be carefully adjusted for each gymnast. The whole thing took a while.

Whilst they waited, Vivian made them do gruelling strength exercises. She had them hanging from the wooden bars set against the wall, pulling their feet to horizontal and down again. Vivian watched them all with eagle eyes, and Ellie was determined to prove she was just as strong as the others.

She held her own against the taller gymnasts in the workout, refusing to give in even when her muscles screamed in pain, but when they started vaulting it was hard not to be impressed by the strength of girls like Memory and Eva. Eva was famous for her beautiful vaulting that made her seem almost as if she was flying, and Memory was so powerful that she seemed to explode into the air like a rocket.

‘Wow, she has got vaulting va-va-voom!’ said Katya, her face so serious as she pronounced this that Ellie struggled not to burst into giggles. But Katya was right. Eva Reddle had won vault gold at the British this year, but Memory, who’d been training in the US for the past three years, was in a class above even her. When it came to Ellie’s turn she was already feeling seriously under pressure. She wanted to prove to Vivian that they’d got off on the wrong foot.

‘Show me a single Yurchenko, Trengilly,’ snapped Vivian as Ellie stepped up to the runway.

But Ellie had already decided what she was going to do. She took the vault run up at full speed, hit the springboard with as much force as she could muster and flung herself up, pushing off the vault and twisting, once . . . one and a half times . . . twice in the air. She’d under-rotated slightly so she had to pull herself sharply back on landing, forcing her foot down so hard to prevent herself toppling that she felt a jolt of pain shoot up her ankle. She took a step back but somehow remained upright. Then, determined not to show weakness in front of her new coach, she took a deep breath and turned to Vivian with a smile.

The coach did not smile back. ‘Did I tell you to chuck a double, Trengilly?’

‘I . . . I just thought . . .’ Ellie stammered, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in her ankle. ‘I had the speed so I . . . I thought I’d try for the double twist.’

‘Yeah, well, your take-off isn’t high enough yet,’ said Vivian, ‘and you’re not aggressive enough in your push to land a double safely.’

‘But I thought that . . .’

‘You’re also pulling your shoulder back too early,’ Vivian went on, her face unyielding. ‘You shouldn’t allow your feet to go over your hands till your body is starting to bend . . .’

‘Right, I . . .’

‘Right.’ Vivian glared at her. ‘So until you can get all that correct, I want you to stick to singles – nothing more than a one and half till I say so. Get it?’

Ellie was struggling with a mixture of emotions – disappointment, embarrassment, anger – and the horrible shooting pain in her ankle. She struggled to keep her voice even as she said, ‘But I thought we were working up new skills . . .’

Vivian stuck her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes. ‘Trengilly, you wanna remember who the coach is here?’

Ellie bit her lip hard.

‘Come back to me when you’ve got a bit more muscle in those scrawny arms and then we’ll talk about upgrades!’

Ellie turned away, her eyes blurry with tears, her face burning with humiliation and her ankle throbbing. It had been just about the worst start to her week at National squad camp possible.

Luckily, the rest of the session went a bit better. Bar, beam and floor with the other coaches was hard work but Ellie found working on new skills exhilarating. She received as much encouragement as critique, even if her ankle did continue to bother her throughout the session. She was by far the strongest on bars – where not even Memory could match her difficulty value – and on floor and beam her artistry was scored as highly as her power tumbles and acro sequences.

The other coaches seemed keen to help her upgrade, and it was a relief to find that not everyone thought she was a completely hopeless gymnast. But Ellie knew that if she was to get a look-in for the Euros squad – or even get a call-back for the selection weekend in six weeks’ time – she was going to have to impress Vivian – or be left out in the cold.