Elite athletes take dedication and commitment to a higher level
May 04, 2008 - 05:00 PM
By Brad Kelly
It was a scene that any parent who thinks they have a son or daughter who is special in their sport should have been witness to.
At an old hangar at the Oshawa Airport, a group of young girls from Gemini Gymnastics were working through some stations on a Wednesday afternoon. In one corner, a girl in the pike position is climbing hand over hand up a rope that extends from the floor to the ceiling without so much as a pause. Another is bent over the top of a boxhorse at the midsection, a partner sitting on the backs of her legs, while she raises up in a reverse sit up, hands behind her head, until her body is completely parallel to the floor. Still another is jumping from the floor to the top of a foam pad about three feet high and down again, one after the other until she can no longer lift off the floor.
And this is just the warmup before the real work begins. They are all elite gymnasts. Kristina Vaculik among them.
"Basically it's my second home," she says as we sit and watch what is unfolding. "Every day is hard in here training wise. Because of all the competitions I am going to I haven't had time to recover, because I have to start preparing myself for the next one.
"Every day in here has been pretty intense."
It speaks to the dedication and commitment level of the kids. And while one might think that they are highly motivated machines who work endlessly and without the praise or push from a coach would me mistaken.
Elena Davydova is watching them like a hawk, clapping her hands together in quick succession the way a hockey coach would bang his stick on the ice during a skating drill to encourage the kids to go faster and harder.
Even Vaculik, despite being among the best gymnasts in the country, needs a little push once in a while, but not very often. That's what separates her from the rest.
"Most of the time I don't have to motivate her," says Davydova, a former Olympic champion. "She is already motivated enough. She works extremely hard and there are times when I even have to stop her."
Davydova then gives some insight into how to gauge whether your own child might join the elite of their sport one day.
"That's not too often that you have those kinds of kids. Usually kids will ask 'How many do you want me to do?' Most ask, but (Vaculik) doesn't even sometimes ask, she just goes until I have to say stop."
It's what separates the good ones from the great ones, and there are a lot more that fit into the first category then the latter.
Brad Kelly's column appears every third week. He can be reached at
bkelly@durhamregion.com.
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