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September -
November 2004
After the
Olympics, I came home to my new house. I moved from Langley
to Coquitlam. I found out that one of my cats, Roxy, went
missing at the old house and probably got killed by a
coyote! I was so sad- Roxy was the cutest cat and had the
most unique personality!!! There was a party for me at my
gym when I returned home - which was so lovely!! I got a
huge bouquet of balloons!!! It was great to talk to all the
little ones at my gym and all the parents about my
experience- I’m sure some of them will be on their own
Olympics teams! My gym has supported me so much through
everything - while I was training in Toronto before leaving
for Europe, they all sent me a “care package” filled
with good luck messages from the gym and also family
members. I received “Gum for Gael” as a good luck
present from the girls at my gym. I guess they know I always
chew gum!
So after all
the excitement from the Olympics settled down, I started
training again and thinking about my goals, and what
competitions I wanted to go to. I also had to think about
school too! While I was training for the Games I was doing
correspondence education and with all the traveling I was
doing, this worked well. But, I missed being in school and
it had always been my intention to return to school as soon
as I could. The move to Coquitlam allowed me to go to
Burnaby Central Secondary School which is a public school
but has a special athletic program and a great counsellor.
There is complete flexibility regarding being away and
missing school. I think that I am the first Olympian
from the school, but there are many other high performance
athletes as well. So, I fit right in.
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In
October I had a training camp in Ontario and in
November I had two back-to-back competitions. The
first was Ghent World Cup. It was my first World Cup
and I felt pretty confident and having Olympic
experience certainly helped that as well. I competed
on bars, beam and floor. I had good competitions and
was happy to make finals on bars, as well as placing
7th on floor (score 9.15) just missing
finals by one place. In bars finals, I placed 6th,
with a slightly higher score than on day 1.
After
Ghent, I left straight away for Marseilles, France
where I would be training for a week before the rest
of Team Canada arrived. It was great to meet up with
the rest of the team! I trained at the Pôle de
Marseille, where Nelu and Adriana Pop coach. It was
nice to meet them and the gymnasts training there.
My French is not great, but from what I had learned
in school, I just managed with translations. The
competition came and I was especially excited
because my aunt, granny and mum were on vacation in
Paris and Marseilles, so they got to come and watch!
My competition started off with an uncharacteristic
fall on my bars dismount. The rest of the meet was
pretty good, and I ended up in 8th
all-around. My team (with Marci Bernholtz, and Elyse
Hopfner-Hibbs) came 3rd which was a great
result. We were thrilled to place right up there
with China and Ukraine, and ahead of Russia and
Romania. I made floor finals, but did not perform my
routine as well and ended up in 8th
place. I was satisfied with how my trip went and was
happy to be going home. |
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The intense
competition and training through October and November,
followed by immediate preparation for Elite Canada resulted
in a flare-up of the Osgood-Schlatter’s condition. As a
result, I was not allowed to compete at Elite Canada. I was
frustrated, but also realized that it was not worth risking
more serious injury.
More: Click
here to read Part III.
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