Somersaults and Dreams: Going for Gold. Cate Shearwater

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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 СКАЧАТЬ