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Chapter 10 (September 2010)
X
"More height on that piked Tkatchev, Payson. Or you'll be getting a deduction you could be avoiding and risk your hands slipping from the bar." Sasha said, as he spotted her on bars.
Payson let herself fall from the bars, making her way to the chalk bowl.
"I don't get this thing. I was doing that move alright before." She said, annoyed at herself.
The bars had been a sore subject for her, when she was first doing her comeback. Sasha and she had worked hard to move through her block, and she thought she was completely over it.
"It's ok. Sometimes you just need to refocus. Take a deep breath and go at it again. I'll spot you" He said, patting her shoulders.
She nodded and went back on the bars. She narrowed her eyes at the apparatus, before swinging around and releasing, the bar, keeping her legs and feet straight as she flew over the bar and caught it again, though barely.
"Now that was too much height. Get down from there." Sasha said, turning her to look at him. "this is not a problem because of you lack strength. It's just a question of knowing your body perfectly. We've been through this before on other moves. Relax" He told her, shaking her arms lightly, trying to make her loosen up. "You're wound up too tightly."
"Ok, you're right." She said, shaking her limbs to shake of the tension.
"The problem is in control. You just need to train the move enough times to get a feel for how much power the move needs in this new body. You might have been doing alright with the move before but this just shows that you haven't mastered it yet. Go train it on the pit for a while. I'll get another coach to help you with it." He said, pointing at the bars set hanging over the pit. "Don't get frustrated, it'll be fine."
She nodded, preparing to move away, as he started making his way over to the men's side of the gym.
"Hey, I just remembered, did you get any interested people to sign in on Monday?" She asked, remembering the throngs of people that had come over two days before.
"Yeah, we did get quite a few new kids. The idea that they can try out different kinds of gymnastics went over pretty well with the parents." He said with a smile. "We also got a few girls from local schools wanting to try out acrobatics. They said it reminded them of cheerleading." He said with a wince. "Joana and Matyas were pretty fast in using that to get more girls to join up" He said, referring to the acrobatic gymnastics coaches.
Payson nodded, happy that things were going well, before making her way over to the pit. These bars were not going to conquer her.
Austin parked his bike in front of the huge gym, taking in the view before him. It had taken him longer than he would have liked to make it to San Jose, but his manager had used the excuse that he was moving to make him stop in LA for a few photo shoots. At least that had given him time to get Lolita all the way to the San Francisco airport, before his flight arrived.
Making his way inside he admired the brand-new facility. The space it had gave it a more open feel. Usually gyms felt cramped, but this one really gave off a different vibe.
Looking around he finally saw the person he was looking for, training on the uneven bars over a pit. Was that a piked Tkatchev? Man, she was looking good. He winced, as she missed the bar and fell on the pit in her second attempt. Well, she was training over a pit for a reason.
"Austin Tucker." A man's voice stated, making him turn around. "When your man called me to say you wanted to train here I had to admit I was surprised. Dimitri Osin. One of the owners." The man said, raising his hand for a handshake.
Austin complied, shaking the man's hand. "Well, when he said who your new business partner was, I just couldn't go anywhere else." He said, nodding his head to where he could see his childhood idol working on the pommel horse with another man.
Dimitri laughed, seemingly not bothered at all that he alone was not the reason that had brought him to the gym.
"Come, I will introduce you." He said motioning for Austin to follow him.
"Sasha" Dimitri called, when they got close to the other coach. "Our new prospective gymnast is here!"
Sasha Belov turned around, and sounded out a greeting. "What brings you to us, Tucker?" He asked curious.
Austin shrugged. "I finished my degree last June, which meant that my agreement with Stanford came to an end." He explained, with shrug of his shoulders. "I've been at the OTC, but It's definitely not the same. I need a more hands on environment. With a coach who is taller than my shoulder" He added, only half joking as he looked Sasha Belov in the eye.
The other man nodded. "Your manager said something about a couple days of trial?"
Austin rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, about that..." The noise of the gym doors opening, followed by wheels scrapping on the floor drew his attention, as well as that of the rest of the gym. "I kind of already decided to stay here for a while...?"
Sasha raised an eyebrow, as the guys pushed the trolley that held his set of p-bars.
Austin sighed. "Worlds is coming up. I can't keep jumping from gym to gym. I need to focus on the competition now. Form all I've heard, this place sounds like a good fit for me"
Sasha looked at him considering. "Welcome to San Jose Gymnastics Academy, Austin."
"Thanks. Glad to be here." He said, grasping the other man's hand.
"Tucker?" Payson asked, coming closer to the water cooler. Where had he come from?
"Keeler" He greeted with a smile. "I think you were the only one who didn't notice me come in. Or my stuff" He said, pointing to a group of coaches fiddling with a new set of parallel bars.
"Your training here?" She asked surprised. She blinked, trying to remember what she knew about him. "Oh, you probably finished college now."
He smiled again, pleased with her knowledge. "That's right. I needed a new gym, and your friend Lauren advised me to come here. When she said you were here, I was interested. Then she said you had gotten Sasha Belov to coach again and I knew I had to come."
She was astonished for a second. For one, Lauren had told her about Austin dropping by the Rock last week, but nothing about talking to him about her. And second, since when had Austin been interested in anything she did?
"You might think different, but Keeler, you do have fans" He said, smiling warmly after reading the questions on her face. It was so different from his normal cocky smirks from the billboards, that Payson felt her breath catch in her throat. "When I thought you wouldn't be able to do gymnastics anymore, I was crushed. But then I heard you were coming back and I felt like everything was back where it should be."
She felt herself gaping, before getting herself under control. "Thank you" She said smiling. "That means a lot".
He raised his hand for a fist bump, which she readily complied. "Let's show them whose boss!" He said, with his signature smirk.
Had he always made her stomach flutter?
Payson was still working on her release move by the end of the next day. Austin had watched her go through the other apparatus during the last two days, and everything had looked solid. A double on vault, a beam that was on par with Tanner, and a floor routine that had left him speechless. She was even training a second vault that, if it was ready in time, would make her a contender for vault finals. Everything was well on its way to where it should be, except that release move.
But if she could get it done... That would mean one of the most difficult bars routines in the world.
Sasha Belov really was a genius, that much was obvious. He was more than ever sure that he was at the right place.
Sasha and Dimitri had observed his routines during the previous day, and had already proposed small changes that would be doable until worlds, and would up his DOD to hopefully put him a step ahead off his direct competition.
He was already planning on staying late and arriving as early as possible every day he could. He wanted that world title, damn it.
"Payson, don't forget I can't stay late tonight. Are you still staying?" He heard Sasha ask.
"Yeah, I want to try and get this thing more consistent. I'll call a cab if I need to. I know you have that dinner with Chris." He was shamelessly eavesdropping, and he didn't care. Who was Chris? Belov's girlfriend?
"You know I don't like you staying alone." He could hear the frown on his new coach's face.
"I'm staying longer too. I can give her a ride afterwards" He proposed, from where he was up on the p-bars. His favorite apparatus was the one he was almost guaranteed to get a gold at, but that didn't mean he should in any way leave any possible crack in his performance.
He could feel Sasha's eyes on him, before the man agreed and left.
He kept working on the parallel bars for a while, before making his way to the pit, to work on his dismount on rings. Sasha had proposed an extra half twist and he was sure he could easily add it, considering the height he was getting off on his release. It was just a question of managing the rotations before he hit the mat, when he was so used to the simpler dismount.
Looking over, he saw Payson grad the bar as she came down from her own release move, puffing as she made her way around for a couple of giants, before repeating the move again. She was getting there.
"You should take five to rest and hydrate." He said. "You're almost there, but as you get tired your focus will waver."
She let herself fall on the pit, breathing hard and taking a moment before she crawled over the foam to the edge of the pit where he stood. He extended a hand to help her out and she took it with a small thank you.
"What are you working on?" She asked, sitting on the floor and taking a gulp of water from the bottle she had kept close by.
"An extra twist on the dismount and a Carmona. Still have to see if I can actually pull the last one." He said, putting the cubic step below the rings. "Do you mind puling it out after I get on?" He asked her. The coaches still needed to install one of those new weight sensitive steps on the apparatuses over the pit.
She nodded and puled the thing out of the way after he was situated on the rings, but keeping it close for later use.
He tried the Carmona first. Neither Sasha or Dimitri had actually proposed it, but it was a move he had been thinking of doing for a while. A challenge to himself.
He rotated his body so he was face down, parallel to the floor, and then raised himself into an inverted cross, holding it for three seconds. Dam, that thing was hard. He was shaking all the way around. He let himself come down on a swing and repeated the process. Better. Not perfect, but better.
After the third time, he did his whole routine, putting the Carmona in place of a lower scoring element, making sure it flowed harmoniously. It seemed good enough for him. He would need to train it like hell before the execution would be good enough to compensate the higher difficulty.
"That was amazing!" Payson said smiling, helping him out of the pit.
"Thanks, but it still needs a lot of work to be competition ready." Putting the step back in place.
"That's why we're here." She said. "I'll take the step out again, but afterwards I'm going back on the bars"
He nodded and climbed up, focusing on the dismount this time. Three twists instead of two and a half. The first time he was still twisting as he fell on the pit. The second – after kicking away the step, since he didn't have Payson to move it – too. On the fourth try he finally had something going, but was still too close to the ground when he stopped twisting. And that was just asking for an injury.
After a good time of training the dismount, he looked over to Payson to see her nailing the release again, concentration clear on her face, though he could see how tired she was.
As she let herself fall to the pit, clearly exhausted, he climbed out of his own cloud of foam and helped her out of the pit.
"Let's go grab a bite to eat, before I take you home!" He proposed.
"I should keep going." She said, looking back at the bars.
"A gymnast still needs to eat, Payson" He said, using her first name. "And your clearly tired. That will just make you sloppy."
She sighed, agreeing. They separated briefly to grab a quick shower and get their things from their lockers, before meeting at the entrance and making their way to the lone car in the parking lot.
"This doesn't look like a car Austin Tucker would drive" She said, looking at the slightly battered truck.
"It isn't." He said, looking at the paint job with distaste. "My usual ride needed a fine tuning and I didn't have the time to do it myself right now. She will be back on the road again tomorrow." He said with a grin and a wink.
She rolled her eyes. "She? Did you name it too?" She asked in a teasing voice.
"Yes! Her name is Lolita!" He said cheekily. "I'll introduce you two tomorrow. I have to warn you that she might get jealous, now that there is another woman in my life." He said in mock seriousness.
She rolled her eyes again, but smiled back at him. "Just drive Tucker. I'm hungry."
He gave her a kicked puppy dog look and said "And here I thought we were on first name basis now. Aren't we friends?" He said with a pout.
"Oh god, you look ridiculous. Put that lip back where it is supposed to be Tucker!" She said with a laugh. When he just accentuated the pout, and pretended to cry at her use of his last name, she relented, laughing harder. "Alright, alright. Now give me food Austin, or I'll be back to calling you Tucker in no time!"
"As my lady commands" He said, saluting and turning on the car.
Sasha, tapped his clipboard with his pen, as the NGO selection committee discussed the details of the petition he had made for Payson, over their conference call.
A petitioning process could be a long one, especially since this one would take effect around world trials. First you had to put your case forward, and explain why you were petitioning, instead of qualifying through the normal means. Since Payson's case was due to injury during a competition, she had easily passed that phase. Then you had to indicate the time when you would be ready and show that readiness.
Worlds were in the beginning of November. The world selection camp started on October 21st, so Payson had to show her stuff before then.
The majority of the committee had seemed interested and supporting of Payson's petition, with one exception. Ellen Beals.
Sasha had heard enough stories about Beals at the dinner table, thanks to Payson's enduring friendship with her former teammate Lauren Tanner, and knew enough to be wary of the woman. He did not want her to be against him, Payson, or any of his other gymnasts.
As Ellen Beals finished his speech on how the National team had to be shown in the best light at worlds, and how they could not completely trust Payson's recovery since she hadn't been in a competitive environment since the accident, which would surely overwhelm her after such a traumatic event, he piped in with what he hoped would be a solution.
"Well the San Jose Gymnastics Academy will be competing at the Fresno Gymnastics Cup, on October 10th. Payson's participation is currently uncertain, since I had to speak to you about the petition plans. If the committee believes it would be beneficial for her to have this competition experience before the petition, she will of course be traveling to Fresno with the other athletes." There, he put it into their hands. If they said no, they would be hypocrites. If they said yes, then when she won by a landslide, they would have to invite her over for the team selection camp.
As he expected, the committee and Ellen Beals readily gave their accent, and promised to send a representative to watch and tape the meet, so they could then take their conclusions on Payson's progress.
Ellen Beals smugness was not lost on him. She probably thought she had won, by making Payson preform ten days earlier than necessary, but he wasn't fazed in the least. Payson would be ready by then. She was already almost there, only needing a few tweaks here and there.