"Are you sober enough to properly spot a girl do a back hand spring?" Coach MacIntyre asked as he tried to figure out what he was suppose to do. "I am." Sasha defended. "Prove it. Let's go to the annex, and I will have you spot Kaylie doing a back handspring." Mac insisted, knowing that his Olympic team did not need spotters for a trick as simple as a back handspring. Sasha grumbled as he stumbled out back to prove himself. "Kaylie, can you come here for a second?" Mac requested as he watched Sasha prep himself to spot. "I need you to do a back handspring with Sasha as your spotter." Mac further explained. Kaylie stood with her back to Sasha. "Ready?" she hesitantly asked. "Yes Kaylie. Trust me." Sasha answered. Kaylie swung her arms and pushed off the floor. She felt Sasha's hand on her back and his other hand connect with her legs to help flip her over. Kaylie landed on her feet and smiled. "See?" Sasha proved to Mac. "Do it once more please." Mac replied. As Kaylie again did her back handspring, Sasha safely guided her through it. "Stay back here with Kaylie, Colleen, and Jordan. I am going to go check on Payson." Mac declared before leaving. "So what are you girls working on?" Sasha asked as he tried to figure out who to help first. "I am working on my double illusion. Colleen is training her Amanar, and Kaylie is practicing her beam mount." Jordan took charge.
"How is your ankle feeling?" Coach MacIntyre asked as he entered the trainer's office. "Better now that I am icing it. Trainer Steve says I can be back to work after lunch, but I need to continue to ice it on and off until then." Payson said to reassure her coach. Mac nodded and walked closer to the blonde. "You have survived breaking your back, and you have recovered from it. A sprained ankle is nothing compared to what you have done. Heck, the last time you sprained your ankle, you vaulted on it. With Sasha not being one hundred percent on his game today, I need you to be better than your best when you are working this afternoon." Mac explained. Payson gave him a slight nod as she combed her fingers through her hair. "Do you have ballet today?" MacIntyre inquired. "Yes. Madame Viola and I have a private after lunch like yesterday." Payson affirmed her schedule. "I know you hated Sasha when he forced you to start ballet, but it is beneficial to your gymnastics training." Coach Mac said in attempts to lift any worries about dancing. "Thanks." Payson replied sounding not at all convinced that it did. "I want you to look at a video of you competing before you started ballet, and after I want you to watch a video of you doing your routines. Pay attention to things such as your feet being pointed and legs straight. You will see a major difference. In fact, you can do that right now. Let me grab my laptop. I am sure there are plenty of training videos from the past up in the office, and I have video of your routines from yesterday." Mac said as he grew excited to demonstrate what a huge difference ballet made for Payson.
"Look, your foot is completely flexed right here." Coach MacIntyre pointed out as he paused the video and circled her foot with his cursor. Payson leaned in closer to better examine the screen. Mac hit play again and allowed the video to run a few more seconds before stopping it again. "That turn was sloppy, and you fell out of it." Mac said before letting the rest of the video of her old floor routine play. Once it was over, he spoke up again. "Now we are going to examine your floor routine from yesterday. An untrained eye would be able to pick up on the improvements ballet has given you. The minor details you are not always thinking about when you are training or competing." The new video began to roll, and Mac briefly stopped it at certain points as he did before to point how her foot was pointed or how good the turns looked.
"Colleen, if your vaulting skills do not improve, you will not compete vault at the Olympics. That kicks you out of the running for the all around." Sasha criticized as Colleen could barely hit the second twist in the air before landing. Colleen grunted in frustration as she climbed out of the foam pit. To be honest, the blind landing that came with the Amanar scared her. She was freaked out not being able to see where her feet were going to plant before she saluted. With that and the extra half twist required to execute it without a major deduction, Colleen was not reaching the bar that the rest of the girls were setting. She could out preform half of them on bars, but she was behind when it came to her weakest event. Her beam was able to keep up with Payson's on a good day. Her floor routine had the lowest degree of difficulty out of the Olympic five, but she nailed it ninety eight percent of the time with no major deductions. Colleen skills were improving by leaps and bounds for her standards, but it did not seem that way when compared to Payson or Jordan. "Got it, Coach Belov." Colleen said with a whole new drive to get this vault ready. She needed to change her ways and do it fast if she was ever going to get an Olympic gold.
[Author's Note: I am really into motivational speeches in my stories right now. When I allow my stories to write themselves, I find speeches popping out. I am just going what flows out.]