April, 2017

In Nov 2006, when Annika was 3.5 years old, we enrolled her in “My Playground”, which was the precursor to Truckee Gymnastics. At home Annika was already physical and gifted. Annika flourished at My Playground, and was always committed to working hard and having fun.

Gym Camp @ 6 years old

Gym @ 8 years old

Around the summer of 2011 “My Playground” moved to a larger building, and formally added gymnastics (now called Truckee Gymnastics). Annika was so happy, having a bigger gym with more opportunities. Annika @ 9; Gym camp @ 10; Annika @ 11.

Annika started competing at Level 4 when she was 11 in 2014; Gold Country in Grass Valley, Sept 2014 and Oroville in Feb 2015. In the Fall of 2014 Annika got to compete in the NorCal State championships in Oroville – what an accomplishment, and it just fed her passion for gymnastics.

At 12 she competed at Level 5, and continued the next year at level 5 at Spirit of the Flame. She did not compete in the Level 5 NorCal State Championships, mostly due to timing. She started Level 5 in the Fall of 2015, and did not score high enough to make the States Championships that Fall. By Spring of 2016 she scored high enough to be promoted to Level 7, whose Championships would not be until Spring 2017.

By the time she was 13 Annika was competing at Level 7; the competition season changed from Fall to Spring, and one of her thrills was to compete in Vegas.

At Vegas Annika earned a spot to compete at the NorCal State Championships in April 2017. However, 2 weeks before the meet she injured her ring finger during PE at school. For those two weeks she still went to practice, yet was unable to do much due to her finger injury. By the time States came, her finger felt better and Annika was excited to compete and to try and qualify for Regionals in SoCal.

It didn’t happen. She had a great floor routine, scoring 9.0. Her vault looked good, but her score was a low 8.4. An bars things went badly; gripping the bar was too painful with her finger, and she ended up in tears and with a score of 5. She had to pass on beam. The few days after States Annika would randomly break down in tears, so upset about how poorly she did, and not giving herself any slack due to the injured finger.

There were 2 nagging issues throughout her gymnastics career; one that Annika was aware of, one she was not.

The issue that Annika knew of concerned the facilities: while they were more than sufficient when Annika was 8, they were insufficient for a level 5 (or 7) gymnast. In particular, the floor was too small, and too hard.

In January 2016, right after a meet in Reno, Annika broke down and shared her disappointments. She wanted to work harder and proceed faster and be able to practice on a “real” floor. She decided she needed to move. We spent one day in Reno, looking at 5-6 different gyms. They were all huge – sometimes 4-5 times larger than Truckee, with more than one of everything (bars, beams, vaults, even floors). Driving to Reno would be difficult, but it seemed the right thing to do. Annika decided she liked Deltchev the best, so we went for one full practice. Annika ended that session on a cloud; the coaches were great, the girls were nice, the facilities amazing. Later that week we went for a second practice, and Annika turned 180 degrees: she wanted to return to Truckee. In the end I think it was the social factor; she missed Kira, Natalie, and Maddy. While I wasn’t that happy about the idea of driving to Reno 4-5 times a week, I was also not that happy about Annika returning to Truckee either. I knew that gymnastics was very important to her, and I also knew that Truckee was not going to get her there.

The one issue Annika did not know about concerned the viability of the competition team. From the start the team was small; and it never grew. Whereas other competitions teams had multiple coaches focusing on individual events, Truckee had a single coach (Michelle, then Christina) responsible for all levels (4,5,6,7) and all events. With on average 4 girls on the entire team, and no visible growth in the future, it didn’t look like the team could continue to exist.

Which brings us to today, April 3rd 2017, which is when Truckee announced that it will cease the competition team, and focus on Xcel. We told Annika last night, and it crushed her. The twins were so upset on behalf of Annika that they were a mess as well. Heartbreaking. It’s only been 3 days since her poor showing at States, so this news is a double blow.

I want so badly for her to continue; her options now are staying at Truckee with Xcel Diamond, or moving to a gym in Reno. I don’t know what she will decide, but I do think it’s important for her to continue gymnastics and chase her dreams which for a long time now has been to compete in gymnastics in College.

Truckee whet her appetite, but it was never going to be able to get Annika to where she wants to go; in particular, Annika has always been willing to work much more than what the Truckee team could provide.