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Gymnastics
Revolution
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A VISIT WITH THE
UTAH UTES
By: Lizzie Morton
10-year-old
Lizzie Morton is a Level 6 gymnast at Gymnastics Revolution. She
recently had the good fortune to accompany her family to Utah,
where she met up with University of Utah Sophomore Kristen Riffanacht. Lizzie and Kristen trained together for about a year
in 2001-2002, and Kristen has since coached Lizzie during parts
of the summer. Kristen is a powerful force for the Utes’
gymnastics team, and Lizzie hopes to follow in Kristen’s
footsteps. The following are Lizzie’s impressions and
reflections on her experience at a University of Utah
competition against Minnesota, January 30, 2004.
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A short time ago, I was very lucky. I got to
see an NCAA Gymnastics meet, and I got to see how great it was.
I would recommend that gymnasts and parents see a meet like
this, because it makes the gymnast feel motivated to think, “I
want to do that!” Also, it’s just really fun and energetic. It
was really exciting at the meet when the audience was cheering
everyone on, and the girls were having fun while doing so well.
The equipment was all the elite equipment, and it looked like
really high quality stuff. The gym was extremely clean, didn’t
see any chalk clouds anywhere! I thought that one of the coolest
things in the gym was the scoreboard. It was awesome! It had a
lot of fun stuff on it, like the replays of tumbling passes.
Another cool thing was the lighting around the floor during the
march in. |
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Utah’s outfits were very cool. They had
terrific team leotards. I thought it was special that they had
completely different warm up outfits. I also like how they all
had their hair up nice and neat. All of the gymnasts were really
involved with the meet, too. For example, Kristen [Riffanacht]
moved mats on events that she wasn’t competing on.
I saw skills that I could already do, like the basics on floor
that they did to warm up. One incredible skill was a triple
twist for a dismount on bars. I also thought that what they did
on vault was really amazing. I think Utah deserved to win,
because they worked really hard. I could tell, because of all
their muscle definition!
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Video Streams
of the meets are available on the Utah Gymnastics
Multimedia site:
Streaming
Meets
You
will need QuickTime Player to view the videos. Click
below to download.
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During the march in, there were flares and smoke.
The floor around the sides had flashing lights, and it was so
LOUD! There was a band playing, and an announcer. It was
exciting because I got to see a really cool march in with a
gymnast that I worked out with. There were 10,000 people (mostly
cheering on Utah) and they were very supportive. There were a
lot of signs that people were holding up all at once. The
gymnasts were even holding the signs, saying, “RED ROCKS!” There
was even a mascot (swoop) going around to the gymnasts and
fooling around with the crowd. I’ve never seen anything like it! |
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The gymnasts were really friendly, also it was
great to meet Kristen’s teammates. Autographs were cool to get
because it’s a great memory picture to have. I will remember the
march in the most, because it was so energetic. I would like to
be able to compete in the NCAA environment, because it is so
cool. I am planning to get to that point by working harder,
getting stronger, and doing extra every day to improve! |
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Tel: 203-798-8651