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6 June 2010, 21:13 At last month’s Pacific Rim Championships, Gymnastics 2010 was lucky enough to get the opportunity to talk to reigning world all-round champion Bridget Sloan. We were planning an in-depth interview, featuring many questions about last year’s world championships and Sloan’s preparations for this year’s world championships, but unfortunately we only had limited time, and our interview was cut short before we had the chance to ask all the questions on our mind. A transcript of our all-too-brief chat appears below. First of all, we are all a bit surprised to see you here at the Pacific Rim Championships, so early in the season. You said last year that you were going to take some time off. Yeah, it was great! Being able to take a little bit of time off is always nice, but I definitely felt I was ready to get back out there. After about a month of, you know, just doing basic training I was ready to get back into the elite programme. Being able to take time off and getting right back into it is such an accomplishment, so I’m very happy with how it’s come back. Since this interview is for the world championships site, we’d like to talk about the world championships for a bit. Were you surprised to win the world title last year? Well, I went into the competition not knowing what was going to happen. I just knew that if I hit four for four, there would be a chance. I definitely wanted to do 1 and 2 with the US. Becca [Rebecca Bross, ed.] and I were definitely wanting to go 1 and 2. No matter what was going to happen, we were striving for that, and we were very happy with the outcome. What are your expectations for this year? How do you think you will fare this year? Well, I’m going to go in with the same mindset as I did last year – you know, just wanting to hit my routines, not looking at the score board, not looking at the results, just looking at my performance in general and being able to hit four for four whenever they need me. Is that how you keep calm during competitions? By not looking at results? Yeah. [nods] Now, about your preparation for this year’s worlds. There was a rumour last year that you had verified a front triple twist on floor. Is that true? Um, I guess we’ll have to see. [big grin] I’m not really going to agree or disagree with that, but hopefully within the next couple of months we’ll see if that’s a true rumour. [grins again] I don’t really know. Maybe… [Judging from the grin she gave us at this point, we’d hazard to guess that Sloan is planning to unveil the triple at either the Cover Girl Classic or the US nationals, to be held in July and August, respectively.] What about the Amanar (2.5-twisting Yurchenko)? How is that coming along? It’s going great! You know, I’m getting my double-twisting Yurchenko back and we are going to strive to get that two and a half, but right now we’re definitely just working on the double and working on the consistency and the power I need to get off the vault. So we’re looking at the double, and the two and a half will hopefully come later. [At this point we were interrupted by Sloan’s coach, Marvin Sharp, who came to announce the gymnasts’ bus to the hotel was ready to leave.] Well, thanks very much, and best of luck this year! Thank you! The next day, we briefly chatted about Sloan’s ankle injury, which kept her from competing all four events in Melbourne. Sloan said the ankle was getting better every day, and that she didn’t think the injury was serious; she just didn’t want to take any undue risks with it. We hope Sloan has recovered from the injury by now, and look forward to seeing her defend her world title in Rotterdam!
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