Gymnastics...

if you've ever met my sister you know that gymnastics is her life. like, really her life. she wakes up every morning at four in the morning to be at the gym by five. she stays there until about noon for dinner, then goes back and doesn't come home till after sundown for entrée. She loved her school but gave it up so that she can focus more on gymnastics (she gets tutored a few hours a day with a few other girls). she used to not have to work on Saturdays because it's Sabbath, but her coach made her go in today. Everyone was pretty peeved, but Angélique went anyways. So I went to pick her up, and she's practicing this new vault called a 1 1/2 twisting Yurchenko, where she rounds off onto the springboard and twists 1 1/2 times in the air. so, she didn't get her twist all the way around, and she totally lands on the side of her ankle and looks like she completely dislocates her knee. she was okay, but it freaked me out because she already has a back and ankle injury. i hate her coach so much, the best French gymnast currently is one of Angélique's friends, Youna Dufournet. If you ever watch any videos of her, you see herself nearly kill herself like 20 times. He makes the girls do things beyond their level, even though it's incredibly dangerous. I just do not want my sister to end up like one of these girls in the video. She looks up to them. Elena Mukhina and Nedezhda Ivanova of Russia, Sang Lan of China, Sabina Cojocar of Romania...these are the girls my sister looks up to, and all of their dreams ended tragically. all that work for nothing. i don't want that for my sister.