Sophie Bajaj, Reporter
While many athletes practice on the courts at school, the girls gymnastics team is hard at work getting ready for competition in the Chelsea Piers gym. Although the commute is far, the NCHS gymnastics team is still able to achieve challenging new skills alongside the Chelsea Piers’ travel gymnastics team.
Senior Captain, Kaitlyn Moussignac, found her love for flipping at the age of two when her mom taught her how to cartwheel. She has now been competing for eleven years.“I was always bouncing around and doing flips and cartwheels around the house when I was little, so I wanted to challenge myself with something I loved outside of the house,” said Kaitlyn.
For Kaitlyn, gymnastics is both mentally and physically challenging. It is not just for an individual sport, but for a team effort as well. “Practices, are long and staying in shape, and not losing focus is tough,” she said.“Being able to focus a lot on our own skills while achieving new skills helps our teammates because although we are competing separately we are really all trying to support and lift each other up as a team.” “It takes courage to go out and compete by ourselves so we try to be there for each other.”
The day to day practice as a student gymnast includes: 15 minutes of stretching. Depending on what event is available to their team, the girls either practice on the beam, bars, vault, or floor and then rotating through these for about two hours. Their practice gets out very late at around five after which they have their long commute home. “it’s a little tougher than the Darien YMCA but you don’t have to compete all four events,”she said.
She had sprained her ankle a year ago and was taken out of gymnastics for around four weeks. After stretching, icing, and physical therapy, Kaitlyn recovered feeling well enough to go back to practice and compete. “Gymnastics is a very high endurance sport and as a result a few of us do get injured frequently.” said Kaitlyn. “Normally, we have the athletes do some conditioning to improve their body strength if they hurt their foot or something just to keep them active and physically in shape while they are taking time off,” said Kaitlyn.
Kaitlyn competes with not only the high school team, but she also pursues gymnastics with the Darien YMCA team. Kaitlyn is extremely busy as she battles both of her gymnastics teams, while also committing to spring track and balancing her school work on top of that. “It can get difficult at times because during the winter time, high school practice and the Darien practice overlap, she said. “So I have to advocate for myself and set a schedule of which practices I have to go to versus which ones I want to go to. Along with managing homework it helps that I have a lot of frees.”
Kaitlyn is unsure if she will continue gymnastics after high school, as she considers pursuing it in either a DII or DIII school. If not, she said that she will definitely compete in a club team her freshman year of college.
Despite the commitment and long hours, Kaitlyn enjoys competing alongside her teammates most of all. “The long car rides are one of the many reasons that we are able to connect as a team,”she said. Kaitlyn is excited to show her skills as the current season progresses.
