It's a Question of Character

Olivia Vivian's post-Nationals blog entry is now up. It's interesting that she says she wasn't happy with her performances. I knew she fell on her bars dismount in the AA, I didn't know she also fell in the team event. Poor thing. A fall on your specialty is never fun. I must say, she has to get some kind of Miss Congenialty award soon. She's always cheering her teammates and I heard from a source that because Dasha and Lauren weren't there for the entirety of the Nationals autograph sessions, Livvy offered to take one fan's address down, get their photo signed for them by the WAIS girls and mail it back. Now THAT'S one gracious athlete.

Does watching Lauren Mitchell 's beam routine from the Apparatus Challenge 4 times in a row just to hear Amy Winehouse's "Valerie" in the background because the iTunes store won't let me download it and my one friend with a working cd burner won't get it for me either make me a bad person?

...I can't help that it's a catchy song...

Please pay no attention to the exploding vitriolic volcanoes on the Aussie Board; he-said-she-said-they-did-you-didn't is flying everywhere thanks to posters who've surfaced from what we believe to be the secret underground tunnels of Gymnastics Australia. They're not happy with the AIS-Moreton Bay College relationship and various aspects of athlete attrition and funding. Who'da thought all that burrowing and keeping gymnasts under wraps would have resulted in such angry little moles?

Harrumph.

In more positive news, the following awards were handed out at the annual GA dinner:

Men's Artistic:

Junior Athlete of the Year - Mathew Curtis (QLD)

Senior Athlete of the Year - Prashanth Sellathurai (NSW)

International Coach of the Year - Serguei Chinkar (QLD)

Women's Artistic:

Junior Athlete of the Year - Emma Dennis (VIC)

Senior Athlete of the Year - Dasha Joura (WA)

Coaching Team of the Year - WAIS (WA)

World Championships Apparatus Finalist - Lauren Mitchell (WA)

and the retirements of Hollie Dykes, Melody Hernandez and Monique Blount were acknowledged.

Alex Croak has indeed qualified for the Beijing diving team so good on her!

We're coming up to the 6 month anniversary of this blog's launching (and 6 months for my fella and I. Oh, how that mistress Time is a glorious thing) so on July 1, find yourself an quiet corner to sit down in a chair, jiggle your legs up and down and go "uuuuumm..." for a few seconds because that's what I do every time I sit here to write something. Cheers, poppets.