Confessions of a Team GB gym 'mom'

Smells like Team Spirit: Part 1

Parenting an ‘elite’ athlete

I first started writing this piece a few months ago, when a package of ‘Team GB’ kit arrived at our doorstep. Despite me not being allowed to take any photographs with her face in; this was the first real, tangible sign that our 15 year old daughter, (who I call ‘Taz’ in my writing) was going to be representing her country in her particular discipline of gymnastics, in the upcoming European Championships in Azerbaijan. With so much to organise and so many questions - not least ‘where is Azerbaijan?’, ‘how do we get there?’, ‘how much will it cost’, and ‘is it even in Europe?’ swirling around my brain, I began reflecting on the incredible experience of having an elite athlete in the family.

There are so many aspects to this - I will definitely have to break them out into separate pieces around topics such as: community and connection, the wonder of co-ed sport, sibling dynamics, and indeed…Azerbaijan. For now, I will give an ‘overview’, and there will definitely be more to come.

[Note - I call her Taz after Warner Bros’ ‘Tasmanian Devil’ as she is a flame-haired whirlwind, not because I was cool enough to christen her that at birth as some have thought…]

Where did it all begin?

When Taz was 4 years old, we enrolled her at a local recreational gym club with her two best friends - the kind of club where little ones hop through hula hoops or balance a bean bag on their heads before jumping delightedly into foam pits with a giggly squeal. One of the familiar plethora of activities that semi-affluent middle-class parents shoehorn our offspring into, in desperate search of unnecessary stimulation (them) and necessary respite (us).

Within 2 weeks however, we were asked to come for a meeting at the club, as they had identified her as a future gymnastic talent, and wanted her to join their ‘elite development squad’. This was unbelievably exciting for all of us - the word ‘elite’ in itself being a tremendously powerful one:

“Elite (noun): a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society.”

That definition in itself makes me feel all kinds of things, most of them quite uncomfortable, yet carrying a huge weight of expectation and pressure.

As the least sporty person in the world, and one who spent my entire teenage years on the subs bench telling the male PE teachers I had a perma-period, she certainly didn’t get this from me. My husband, however, was courted for a semi-professional rugby contract as a lad, was a county water-polo player and all sorts, so genetically, this could only be down to him. The club were also interested in her older sister, Fiver, although concerned that she was probably too old to join the ‘elite pathway’ at the grand old age of seven. Thus, Fiver was not so gently brushed aside, whilst Taz was scooped into another world.

[Fiver is named after the nervous rabbit in Watership Down, as she has eyes the size of dinner plates and worries about everything, yet holds the wisdom of ages inside her and just makes everything alright in the world.]

And so began our entry into a peculiar realm of closed doors, sparkly leotards and delegated trust in those in loco parentis. A world of saying goodbye to a 4 year old and picking her up 3 hours later with no feedback or knowledge of what she had been doing. Set against a backdrop of early years education with its incessant and unnecessary daily reports, photos and observations, where any tears or the slightest sneeze would be noted and discussed with us at the end of the nursery/school day; we found ourselves in a parallel existence of no reports or charts, no observations or grades. Where we would drop Taz for several hours training a week and the blinds would come down on the gym windows so we couldn’t watch a thing. A place of silence and mystery. Sometimes she would emerge bouncing with joy, sometimes in floods of tears with sparse words.

I remember mentioning this to mums of boys who did rugby training and they thought it was bizarre as rugby was very open, but other mums who had daughters who did dance said it was quite normal, so we went with it. It was a case of ‘that’s just the way it is in gymnastics.’ There was a sense instilled in us as parents very early on, that ours was not to question… Although I still don’t know a lot about the content of her early years gymnastics training, I do know that it has certainly taught her to be incredibly hard on herself, to strive for perfection, to push herself beyond her limits and to achieve without celebration. Hmm.

Despite my concerns about being so excluded from this part of her very young life, Taz loved gymnastics from the outset, being an extraordinary ball of energy and constantly practicing her skills at home. It was after about a year that I noted how stomach aches would occur before training. When I would gently question whether she wanted to go, it was always a very firm ‘yes’. When we suggested she didn’t have to do gymnastics at all, she pooh-poohed that instantly. Of course she wanted to do gymnastics.

The stomach aches increased in frequency.

When she was 6 years old, having still received very little feedback in the previous 2 years, we were once more called to the gym. There, we were ‘sat down’ by her coach, a former Olympian, and advised that she was being dropped from ‘elite artistic gymnastics’ - that is the type of gymnastics we are all familiar with from the Olympics - floor/bars/beam/vault. She wasn’t flexible enough. I felt a huge sigh of relief, I knew something wasn’t going well, and this felt like the elephant that had been waiting to barge into the room. Meanwhile Taz dissolved into floods of tears on my lap, imprinted with an immediate narrative of ‘I’m not good enough’ at the age of six. We had not had a chance to prep her emotionally, as we hadn’t had a clue it was coming. It was singularly brutal, but that’s how artistic gymnastics can be.

What the club did later suggest, however, was that she may like to trial a new sport, a different gymnastics discipline - one called TeamGym. Here the focus was on strength and agility rather than extreme flexibility. This was a sport of tumble tracks and trampettes, vaults and sprung floors. A showcase for bouncing, flipping and twisting as well as intricate dance, choreography and athleticism. Here there would be no ‘over-stretching’ as Taz had previously described in her spilts training, but a place to unleash power. Not only that, this was not an individual sport like artistic gymnastics, this would take place in a team.

It was a life changing moment for all of us. The pre-training stomach aches never returned.

What is TeamGym?

Ok I’ll try and keep it brief. [cue slightly factual para with VERY cool video footage interspersed to maintain interest. ‘Bear with’, reader]

TeamGym is one of several gymnastics disciplines:

• Women’s Artistic (floor/bars/beam/vault - Simone/Olga/Nadia…)

• Men’s Artistic (floor/vault/pommel/rings/high bar/parallel bars)

• Rhythmic (ribbons/hoop/rope/ball/clubs) - female only

• Trampolining Gymnastics including

  • Tumbling

  • Double Mini Trampette

• Disability Gymnastics

• TeamGym

• Acrobatic Gymnastics

• Aerobic Gymnastics

• Parkour

• Gymnastics for All (recreational)

The top 4 are the ones you will know, and see in the Olympics.

TeamGym is a non-Olympic gymnastics discipline that originated in Scandinavia, and it comprises three elements:

• Floor - a synchronised gymnastic and highly choreographed floor routine for the whole team. (Taz is front right as you look at it)

• Trampette - a series of complex somersaults and twist on trampette and vault, which are ‘streamed’ so the gymnasts are continually performing one after the other.

• Tumble - a highly dynamic and entertaining series of flips, twists and somersaults along a sprung tumble track which are also ‘streamed’.

Olympics next?

So is TeamGym in the Olympics? No.

Is it likely to be? Not in the near future.

Apparently the governing bodies feel that there are already too many gymnastics disciplines included in the Olympics and are trying to diversify, hence the inclusion of sports like skateboarding, sport climbing and…er…”breaking” (needle scratches across record). Also TeamGym is predominantly a European sport so there are no World Championships. The European Championships are the current pinnacle, however with increased interest arising from the USA, Russia, Uganda and Australia (apparently) we may reach the world stage yet…

What TeamGym is, however, is the most brilliant sport I have ever encountered because it enables gymnasts to reach the extraordinary complexity and difficulty of some of the more traditional gymnastic disciplines, but without the pressure of doing it across all of the apparatus. Most importantly, they get to compete as a team, being there with each other, not against each other. There is no single ‘number one’ gymnast, it is all about the team. You can hear me waffle on about it here. (Slightly conscious that I forgot to thank the coaches who are incredible. Chris & Amber - YOU ROCK - we would not be doing any of this without you).

britishgymnasticsofficial

A post shared by @britishgymnasticsofficial

That said…if I had £1 for every time someone asked me when Taz was going to get to the Olympics, I’d be…well…perhaps able to afford the costs of this non-funded sport. Which brings me nicely onto:

The costs

Financial:

There are so many ways to look at the costs of parenting a child in elite sport…so let’s start with the obvious. Financial.

TeamGym is a non-funded sport. Oh how I chuckled as the GB kit arrived, which we paid through the nose for, with ‘National Lottery’ emblazoned on the arm. You’d think it had been provided perhaps? Not a chance. In TeamGym the families pay for EVERYTHING - including the GB tracksuits.

We pay for every training session, for all kit, for every competition (both to enter the gymnast and to watch). We pay for our children to attend the GB training and selection camps, and the accommodation as they travel up and down the country for these. Once selected, we pay for their GB training weekends and associated accommodation and travel. We pay to enter them into British Championships and European Championships, we pay for their flights and accommodation, and then obviously we pay to travel and spectate ourselves. This is not meant to sound ‘woe is me’ as it is certainly a privilege to be involved, but it doesn’t come cheap.

We calculated that the European Championships in Azerbaijan alone have cost almost £10 000 for us to enter her, for training and selection, for all the kit, to pay for flights and accommodation, and then to go along and support her. We are HUGELY grateful to have had grandparents on both sides help us with the cost of this. People often ask me what this means for children from less privileged backgrounds? The answer is I honestly don’t know, because I’ve never had to find out.

My rugby and football parenting friends by contrast, tell me how they train for free (or at football academy are paid to train!!), they have kit provided, how travel and accommodation to fixtures is paid for… How curious, said Alice. #pickedthewrongsport

We get a tiny crumb of joy when British Gymnastics advise that we don’t need to pay for the competition catsuits and leotards - items that cost around £120. It’s a drop in the Azerbaijani ocean (well Caspian Sea), but as Tesco say: “every little helps”. We are all SUPER excited to see our kids in GB competition kit rather than club kit. What a proud moment that will be…

Time:

The next huge cost is time. Over the years she has spent between 7 and 20 hours a week training, and this is pretty low on the elite sporting scale. Speaking to Olympic swimmer friends, they train up to 40 hours a week on top of full school schedules, so I feel extremely happy to be involved in a sport that currently isn’t under the Olympic spotlight. In order to facilitate all this training, we spend several hours a week driving to and from the gymnastics club, and I’m not gonna lie, when Fiver passed her driving test I was just so delighted to have another family member on the rota. With GB training there are weekend camps up and down the country, and with a shift working husband and only one of me there are necessary limits on where else my time can be spent. The GB camps are non-negotiable.

I have relied heavily on my mum over the years for driving help, but this is becoming increasingly untenable. Only 2 years until Taz can drive herself… Now that Taz trains on a Friday night until 9pm (as well as 2 other evenings and most of Saturday), that’s the end of my Friday night social life. (I’m pretending I have one - indulge me). Ok, so I don’t really have a Friday night social life anyway, but now I spend Friday evenings in a pub near the gym with my laptop, a fish burger and chips and a pot of tea. I am nothing if not a creature of habit.

Apart from the actual hours, we are constrained throughout the year by the competition schedule. Family holidays are determined by the placement of British (and now International) Championships. With the qualifiers as separate competitions we invariably now have a major gymnastic commitment at Easter, in summer and October. We shoe-horn our family time around it. It’s not an issue most of the time, it’s just the way it is and has been for the last 9 years, but it does set the frame within which we all operate.

Family:

Here’s where we get down to it. Many of Taz’s team mates have siblings that are also in elite sport, whether in the same sport or a different one. I honestly don’t know how those parents do it (I feel a dissertation type study coming on). In our household, there is only Taz in this sphere which makes it easier for us logistically and financially, but not emotionally.

If Fiver had £1 for every time she’s been asked ‘are you the gymnast?’, or ‘are you the gymnast’s sister?’ she could have funded the whole kit and caboodle… although would possibly have chosen not to.

Fiver is the kindest, most considerate and gentle human I have ever encountered (humble brag bonus that I created her). She has never wanted to compete in sport, following much more in my perma-period footsteps and eschewing sport for other teenage activities - (her: acting; me: maths and smoking). She has, however, had to exist in the shadow of a younger sibling. One who consistently over achieves in sport and at school, who is ‘popular’ and vibrant, who does not go unnoticed. Fiver has taken up the role of blending into the background, being quiet… Taz, however, would do anything for her.

When Taz was selected for Team GB, we were absolutely overjoyed and delighted at the randomness of going to Azerbaijan. We then discovered that the dates lay over Fiver’s 18th birthday. Fiver was not happy. Taz immediately said ‘it’s ok, I won’t compete. I can do European Championships any time, Fiver is only 18 once.’ She meant it, she absolutely adores her older sister and they are extraordinarily close. The dynamic is something to behold. I, however, pulled parent rank. ‘We’re going to European Championships - you may NEVER get this chance again. Fiver will have another birthday.’ Harsh perhaps, but I held that ground. I gave Fiver 3 options:

• Come with us and we’ll extend our stay so we celebrate your 18th in Azerbaijan

• Stay home and we’ll fly back after the gym finals and be home on your birthday

• Stay home and we’ll celebrate your birthday the following weekend.

Taz wasn’t going to be able to be with her no matter which option she chose. Fiver chose to come with us, and we had the most wonderful and memorable day. From a Nutella croissant for breakfast (her breakfast of dreams) to gardens full of cats, from pots of tea to pineapple shisa, Fiver was surrounded by family and our gym friends who included her as their own. We celebrated when it turned midnight on her 18th with strawberry vodka shots in Baku’s main square - it was an unforgettable day.

The dynamic is a balance we carry very carefully, all the time. Always celebrating the wonder of Fiver’s achievements which are lower public profile (acting awards, LAMDA distinctions, superb work with animals) but never of lower significance. You can be sure, though, that no one has ever said to Taz: ‘are you the actor’s sister?’ or ‘are you the sister of the lovely girl in the pet shop?’. Of this, we are painfully aware.

The rewards

So those are some of the costs…but then, there are the rewards…

The experience

Ok so the rewards really do outweigh any of the costs, countless times over. It’s hard to describe the extraordinary experiences we have had as a result of Taz and her team mates’ capabilities. Watching a child perform in any setting is heart stopping and tear inducing. Put that onto the national and international stage, in a sport that has real risk of injury and is spectacular to watch, and it is true edge of the seat stuff. It doesn’t get much better than this.

The pride

Are we proud? Fiercely yes, but genuinely of both of them in their different ways. To be honest my pride at watching Taz do gymnastics is quite detached because I still cannot get my head around it. It’s a very surreal experience. The child I see out there is not the child that bounces off the walls at home (yes she has ADHD), whose bedroom is a bomb site and who receives 5000 homework detentions a week. The child I see out there is a disciplined professional with extraordinary focus and determination. She flips and twists her body in the most incredible way without being able to describe how. It confuses the hell out of me.

I feel SO proud at watching all the other gymnasts, (and I’m not just saying that in case their mums read this article). I hold my breath as each and every one performs, and punch the air in delight as these young (barely) men and women display the utmost courage and skill. I know the other parents feel the same way. One family flew to Baku and their son was injured in the warm up, and devastatingly unable to compete at all. His parents, whilst also managing the fallout for him physically and emotionally, were in the stadium throughout celebrating the rest of the team.

My pride at seeing Fiver travel to support her sister (she’s terrified of flying) and integrate into a group of unknown adults with their own experiences and anxieties is hard to articulate. Watching her as a young woman making her way in the world, standing up for herself and claiming her identity is something else. In a strange way we owe this testing of her (dis)comfort zone to the gymnastics too.

And as for the moment when the gymnasts themselves donned their brand new (and PAID FOR) GB catsuits and leotards….?? Drum roll…..

Well….it never happened. 2 days before leaving for Baku we were informed that the kit wasn’t going to arrive in time. Fucking shambles. Apparently the supplier ‘ran out of material’. No mentioning the supplier (cough..Milano…cough). The coaches were incredible, and rallied around gathering up club kit, picking off lettering and ironing on Union Jack stickers… but oh the collective rage of the parents as we hugged the sobbing gymnasts and said it didn’t matter. Which brings me on to….

The community

Having missed out on the whole school gates malarkey (await forthcoming post on community and connection), the circle of friends we have made through gymnastics over the last couple of years in particular has been phenomenal. What I love so much about TeamGym as a sport, is that we as parents are not in competition with each other because our gymnasts are not in competition with each other. There may be a bit of internal vying for ‘placing’ or ‘ranking’ on the apparatus, or who carries the flag, but the gymnasts really are all in it together, and so are we.

The mums’ group chat in the run up to the Euros was something to behold. The insanity of the week before we left reminded of a previous piece I wrote ‘Life Interrupted’….

In the week prior to departing for Baku we found ourselves in a flurry of messaging traffic that was possibly world record breaking: Kit checks, sizing, tickets, travel, what snacks to pack?, have the GB catsuits arrived? check size of hand luggage, roaming allowance, check hold baggage, co-ordinate matching pyjamas for the girl gymnasts, bring a toilet roll, have you bought spectator tickets? (CAN YOU IMAGINE US GETTING THERE AND NOT BEING ABLE TO WATCH?!?!), did anyone get vaccinations?, visas all done?, research on restaurants we can get together at, group tours for non-gym days, how to get Azerbaijani currency, who’s packing the flags and Union Jack tattoos?, what are your seat numbers? how do we get from the airport? seriously, when are the GB catsuits arriving? remind me the anti-doping regs - can they have Sudafed? are the girls getting their nails done? OMG HAVE YOU SEEN THAT THE CATSUITS/LEOTARDS AREN’T ARRIVING???!!’… and so on and so on.

I thank God that we are all there for each other, checking on each other, ensuring we have everything done and that we’re not falling apart… From an invitation to get my own nails done, to the rallying around the parents of the injured gymnast, and as for the dads (and grandparents) - well they’re just bloody brilliant. [More to come on this separately.]

The impact on Taz

One of the greatest rewards for me is looking at the young woman that Taz has become, partly due to the experience of elite sport. She is self-driven, single-minded and weirdly humble (I think this may come from the artistic days of playing down success). She ideally doesn’t want anyone except hubby and I to watch her at comps. The days of inviting the extended family when she was younger are long gone. She hates me telling the school. I’m VERY restricted as to what I can post anywhere (although British Gymnastics post everything). At the same time, she absolutely blows my mind. Watching her navigate the delicate balance with her sister is beautiful in itself. She does not brag or boast, she shrinks back - sometimes too far, to make sure that Fiver is always equally or more highly valued. She messes around with her friends, pushes the boundaries frequently, and then in a heartbeat is laser focused and performing gymnastics at an astonishing level. Being a serial underachiever she talks about wanting to go to Cambridge to study Law. I don’t expect that this will be her path, for several reasons, but what I do know, is that if she decides that it is her path, she will make it happen.

Reflections

I tell Taz I’m writing this piece and before I publish it, I quiz her about a few things over dinner: ‘Do you remember when you were in artistic gymnastics?’.

‘Yes, I hated it.’

‘Why? what used to happen in training?’

‘We would be measured in a ‘bridge’ to see how many centimetres were between our hands and our feet. The less centimetres the better. We would then be measured on the gap between our crotch in splits and the floor. I could never get my crotch flat on the floor, but I would still have my feet lifted, to be ‘overstretched’. It really hurt. This doesn’t happen in TeamGym, I bloody love TeamGym’.

‘Wow’, I say with a weird sense of not feeling as guilty as I normally would - is this because I am so far from my Catholic upbringing that I’ve finally started to shed guilt? Or because I know that I didn’t have any agency (not that that’s an excuse) and that this is what it takes? Sport hurts, right…?

‘Tell me more!’ I encourage, ‘I’m writing an article - give me all the juicy stuff’.

‘Ok, well I never got the teddy’.

‘What was the teddy?’

‘The teddy for doing well… ok I got it once, but they really didn’t like me in artistic’

As my heart gently breaks, I joke: ‘right, I might say you never got the teddy for the purposes of my article. You’re ok if I exploit your story for dramatic effect, right?’

‘Sure’, Taz says with a wry smile.

Fiver lifts her head from the table: ‘I’ve never been important enough to have my story exploited.’

Fuck.

Well I guess you can’t do it all, all of the time, but it is never as simple as hard work and medals, family pride and FaceBook…there is SO much more. But ultimately, none of us would change a thing. Well not much anyway. And there is where I’m going to leave this for now.

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I have follow up pieces coming up on sibling dynamics, with a lot of insight from Fiver, as well as more on the community of parents (Dance Moms anyone?), and the wonder that is Baku. Stay tuned for the rest in the series.

I’ve been away for a little while but I’m damn glad to be back. I’d love to know your thoughts on this piece. I love getting insights into worlds I will never experience, which is why I’m slightly obsessed with things like ‘Banged Up Abroad’. Does this give a flavour of a world you don’t inhabit? Or perhaps you have an elite sportsperson in your family - does any of this sound familiar? I’d so love to hear.

As always,

Love & lemons 💕🍋

Em xx

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