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Sidelines
Kalani Simpson
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Nani nearly leapt right out of the event
NANI Vercruyssen did not, in gymnastics lingo, "stick the landing." And sticking the landing is key. It is a big part of gymnastics. Kerri Strug stuck it on one leg and will go down forever as one of the all-time heroes of the sport. A new "Bring it On"-style gymnastics movie is entitled "Stick It." (At least I think it's about gymnastics.)
This is how big sticking the landing is. Anyone who has ever watched an Olympics telecast knows at least one piece of advice to yell at the TV: You've got to stick the landing!
Vercruyssen, the local-girl junior national trampoline champ, did not stick it, yesterday, at the Pacific Alliance Gymnastics Championships junior trampoline prelims.
Stumble? No. Tumble? No again.
She flipped right off the trampoline, a bad bounce, high, far, fast. Sudden. Unexpected. It was like something out of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." A flying leap.
What was she thinking as she flew? "Fight! Fight! Fight!"
She fought. She landed on her feet on the padded ledge on the edge of the tramp. Perfect. A brilliant save. Then off, without breaking momentum, to the floor to perform her stuck-landing form there. Ta-da!
It was the most spectacular thing I'd ever seen. She was like Spider-Man.
Wow. Now THAT was cool.
"If you stay tight when you're flying like that you won't get hurt," she would say.
It was incredible. It was marvelous. It was wonderful.
Except it wasn't, you see. She hadn't stuck the landing. She'd bounced right off the platform. Probably right out of the event. There were hugs right afterward, and not the congratulatory kind.
"I lost my balance," the Kaimuki Middle School student explained.
It happens, even to the best. "It happened at the Olympics," someone said.
Yes, the very next competitor stumbled, bouncing back into the trampoline's edge. Then the No.1 USA men's junior bad-bounced on his landing, too.
"He's in exactly the same boat Nani was in," her dad, Dr. Max Vercruyssen, would say. "Exactly!"
Well, he stayed on the trampoline, rather than jumping out of the gym. But other than that, yeah.
But then the numbers came back, and Nani beamed. Somehow, she was still in it: "I had a higher DD." Degree of difficulty. "My routine has 20 flips and 10 bounces," she said. And nine twists, too. Her dad had done studies on what a human can do in 2 seconds -- about the time she has in the air on each bounce. Yesterday, their daring paid off. She was in, by four-tenths of a point.
It looks like such fun when she's flying, 25 feet off the ground. "It is," she said. She smiled. She's in the finals today.