|
Sidelines
Kalani Simpson
|
Gymnasts put on their game faces
GAME faces. It's all there, etched in their expressions. The tension. Determination. Ferocity, and yes, just the slightest hint of fear. Just like any athlete before any big game in any other sport. Game faces.
The gunfighter stare. The thundering heart. The pacing tiger's trance.
These were not pixies, no. They are chalk dust, not glitter. Game faces. Not pretty little girls.
"They have the same mind-set as any professional athlete I've known," Steve Rybacki said last night, at the 2006 Pacific Alliance Gymnastics Championships at Blaisdell.
And this was the women's all-around.
Nadia won the women's all-around. Mary Lou, too. This is the sport's signature crown.
This is what every woman wants.
This is 6 or 7 hours of training a day. This is early mornings and screaming coaches and searing pain. The constant competition. And dreams.
Rybacki was an Olympics coach. Now he's on the three-person panel that selects the U.S. national team.
"Just to make the team is pretty stressful," he said.
He doesn't want to see game faces, not necessarily. He wants to look out and see relaxation. Practice is when it's supposed to be tough. He'd prefer autopilot now.
But this is gymnastics. The women's all-around.
There was the USA's Nastia Liukin, she won the 2006 Tyson American Cup, was second at worlds last year by .001. She knelt alone at the edge of the mat, makeup perfect, ponytail pulled back tight. Breathing. Quiet. Alone in the moment, like a karate guy about to break boards.
Eyes pleading. Breathing.
Breathing, heaving, shoulders going up and down. Deep. Deep.
Chellsie Memmel, her teammate, the world champ. Eyes closed. Eyes closed, lost in thought.
Game faces.
Jana Bieger, lying forward, ruminating. Her coach, her mom, working furiously on those powerful legs. Trying to loosen them in time.
The only smile belonged to Shayla Worley. She'd say something and break them up. She's 15. A young girl. She flashes a braces smile. Too young to know any better. Still thinking this is all so cool. Her dad is a rancher, mom a court reporter. She goes to regular school.
Bieger's mother was a three-time Olympic gymnast for West Germany. Liukin's father won four medals for Russia in the '88 Games, her mom was a rhythmic world champ. Memmel is the daughter of two All-Americans who own their own gym. Her bio tells us she was born in 1988. Began gymnastics? 1989.
They know better.
They know.
Memmel and Liukin are champions, Rybacki said. They feel the world on their shoulders, at times.
Martha Karolyi, the U.S. team coordinator, exhorted the group: "Believe in yourself," she said, "and go for it!" She is her husband without the mustache. She flashed a smile and shook a fist.
The four of them gathered together, a huddle of a hug. One of them is saying something. Game faces barely inches apart.
Then the flags march out and the music pounds. Shayla's coach was nervous enough for both of them, pacing, his hands together, fingers interlocked.
The four Americans sprinted up the runway. Vault was first. They waited, waited. Hearts pounding. Game faces fearful and fierce.
Liukin breathed deeply, her shoulders rising and falling, deep, so deep. You could feel the blood rushing, just by watching her. Her expression said everything. Tension. Determination. You could see the thoughts racing through her mind.
She ran down the runway and into her dreams. Into the air, over, flip, flip, flip.
She came back and shook her leg and grinned. Her trance was broken and she was talking to her teammates for the first time. A mile a minute, game face gone. They were all talking for a stolen moment, then.
Liukin beamed. At last she could talk. At last she could smile. For a stolen moment, their game faces were grins.