I will back up to May, 2012. In May I was at my 2nd National Championships in Ottawa, Ontario when one of our fabulous Senior women's athletes, Peng Peng Lee (Christine Lee) was injured on training day. After my Championships were over, I wrote to Peng Peng to give her my support. She was to be Canada's team Captain in London for the Olympics that summer. We started writing back and forth and she told me about her awesome first coach, Carol-Angela Orchard, who taught her the famous Homma mount on beam. It is a pommel horse move and is really cool. Peng Peng gave me Carol-Angela's contact information to find out more, and Carol-Angela and I became penpals!
I learned that Carol-Angela was married to Sir Ed van Hoof, men's senior coach for the British team. How cool! Carol-Angela asked me to send some videos of my gymnastics. She enjoyed those and showed Sir Ed. It was fun to share my passion with two very passionate gymnastics people.
Once the 2012 Olympics started, of course I followed the gymnastics. I got more and more excited about the British team who were under dogs, but fighting like nobody's business! I set up a twitter account ( Elijah Thompson @KristaThompson7) and followed those lads, sending them some encouragement as they fought through team qualifications, team finals (where they won Bronze!!), individual All Around and Event Finals. It was great fun!
Sir Ed and Carol-Angela surprised me after the Games with an incredible package including souvenirs from the games, a T Shirt signed by the entire British Men's team, French team and Japanese team and all sorts of amazing postcards with autographs, pins and other things. WOW!!
We kept in touch through the year and I shared my goal of becoming National Champion with Sir Ed and Carol-Angela, a 'secret' quiet goal in my heart. They were so excited when I made my goal in 2013!! Max Whitlock, European Gold medalist on floor at the time, and Carol-Angela sent me this awesome photo!
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Not long after, Max was 4th All Around at the World Championships and Silver on Pommels!:
It is great to have friends in the sport around the world!
April, 2014, I received an invitation from Sir Ed and Carol-Angela to train in Lilleshall and meet in person these penpals and heroes I have been watching the past 2 years. I cannot wait!!
