My little Gymnast

Claire had her very first gymnastics meet yesterday. She was so excited! She is on a developmental team so they have the coaches near them to spot them and help tell them what to do if they forget. Claire did really well.

This is her on the bars. She seemed to face away from us for every event so I really don't have many good pictures! Her only white ribbon was on bars. The judge was grading HARD on the bars! The highest score he gave for her group was a 7.9 and that was to a girl who even went to the high bar and did really well. Claire's score was a 7.5 so we were pretty happy with that after seeing all those other scores!


This is her on the beam. (Again, facing away from us!) She was the only one on her entire team that tried a cartwheel on the beam with no help. She just learned to do it this week. Her coach was really impressed that she could do it and land on both feet on the beam so she put it in her routine for the meet. Unfortunately, Claire was really excited and went a little fast. She fell off the beam when she did it. :( She still got an 8.7 for a score. It was a red ribbon, but since the element was so hard it didn't completely kill the score. She looked very upset afterward, but she must have gotten over it because she went out on the floor and got a blue ribbon on her floor exercise! I was videotaping that so I don't have any pictures of it.



Her other event was the vault. I was videotaping that one too, so no still shots. She got an 8.8 on it for a red ribbon.

She was so proud! All of the girls got a team medal. Claire loves her medal!! She's been wearing it around the house off and on today!



Her next meet is in April. This is really fun...although its a little nervewracking for parents! My heart just sank when she fell doing the cartwheel, but I was so proud of her for trying it. They are grading differently this year too, so the scores are being done a lot like the competitions for the older gymnasts. Apparantly, in the past, if you showed up and did a routine you got a blue ribbon. I hardly saw any blue ribbons yesterday. I like the scoring though. I think if you are going to compete for something then you should have to earn it.

Can't wait for the next meet!