After the boys were done competing my coach pulled me to the side to ask where I had been and to tell me that I "better not be putting a boy before my career and my team." which was a little nerve wracking because I had been, well it felt that way anyway. But maybe for once it was time for me to be selfish on my days off, I've never really been able to do that before. I assured her otherwise though that no boy was going to get in the way of anything and went about the rest of my day. Tom and I grabbed some Starbucks and sat around talking all afternoon about anything and everything, from growing up to getting where we were now. It was really nice to just talk for once, we were always so busy that it seems like we never really got the chance to get to know each other. Strange right? A couple that barely knows about each other? Well that's what happens when you live the way we do.
Since I have team finals tomorrow I had to head back to my dorm early to get myself focused. Tom kissed me goodnight and I headed inside, Aly was already passed out so I just hopped in the shower, and went straight to sleep. I woke up around 8:30 the next morning with one thing on my mind: Gold. I woke up Aly so we could start getting ready together and make sure we got some breakfast before having to leave. We stayed off our phones and just blasted some music to get us pumped. I put up my hair into a tight bun with my lucky hair tie of course, and put on my leo, today we got to choose to wear a bright colored one, so we chose Aly's coral and purple GK Elite.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
After I had gotten in on I sat down and did my make up, I did a light purple smokey eye, with gold winged eyeliner, and then a light foundation. Once Aly and I were both done getting ready we put on our warm ups, grabbed our bags, and headed downstairs to get some breakfast. While down there we ran into Tom and his friends, but he knew how focused I needed to be so we kept our distance. It was so nice having someone that knew what I was going through and knew to give me space. He usually didn't, but I think after everything with my coach last night he's kind of scared now. Aly and I ate some oatmeal and a banana, then made our way to the arena. It was so loud and packed, I couldn't even hear Aly who was walking right next me. We made our way to our team room and began to go through our pre competition rituals, at 11:30 sharp our coach walked in and said "Lets go ladies, we have a gold medal to win."
We walked out of the room and made our way to the arena, like the other day many people were there to make a trail leading us all the way up to the doors. As soon as we went through those double doors there was a loud roar of cheers, we all stood there in awe yet again, and made our way towards the floor area so we could wait to be introduced with the rest of the countries. They introduced us again one by one and every time its like the cheers got louder and louder, our first apparatus today was the vault, I was doing the two hardest I possibly could, an Amanar and a triple-twisting Yurchenko, which was slightly harder than the Amanar, and if I landed my second vault perfectly it will be named after me. I warmed up twice with some pretty basic skills as always and then went for it. My first vault I took the smallest hop, which would be at most a .3 deduction, which was still really good. I stepped up for my final vault took a deep breath, and began running.
I couldn't believe it, I landed solid. The only thing that made me realize it was really happening was the insanely loud cheering, I ran off the mat and jumped into my dads arms hugging him, then proceeded to run to my team and then stand there waiting and watching Aly, hoping that she would stick just as well as I did. I cheered and cheered for her as she was running, and she did it!! The rest of the girls landed theirs with great execution and very little hops afterwards, if there was one thing we were definitely good at it was the vault for sure. We went on the the floor, and then lastly the uneven bars. Then, it was time for the award ceremony, we put on our presentation uniform and headed up to the podiums. Your bronze medalists are the USA, Your silver medalists are Russia, and finally last but not least our 2012 gold medalists are GREAT BRITAIN!!!!
We did it. Our first Olympic gold in women's gymnastics, we waved our hands to everyone in the stadium and prepared to stand for our anthem. After we were done we made our way over to our bags to start putting our things together, and that's when I saw Tom standing there with my father, I ran up to him and he hugged me so tight "I'm so proud of you blondie" he whispered in my ear then began to ask my father to take a picture, we stood a posed while my dad was acting like my personal photographer, there's some candids of us laughing and some of him kissing my cheek, or pointing at my medal. The fun was interrupted by a reporter trying to get some things answered, which I gladly stopped what I was doing to make sure she did just that.
"Sorry to bother you Mattie, but I just wanted to tell you congrats first of all! And see where your head is at right now, now that you have the chance to process what just happened" He asked
"It's okay! And thank you so much! Honestly it's all so overwhelming right now but I'm just excited that myself and the rest of the girls could bring home this gold for everyone here in England, I'm still in shock honestly!" I replied
" How do you feel about the triple-twisting Yurchenko vault you did now being named after you?"
"Honestly I feel kinda like it's a dream! It's so crazy when something gets named after you, this is my second time it's happened and its crazy weird thinking that people ares going to be calling it 'the Rodgers', I know it's something my mom always wanted to have happen to her so as a gift to her for being here with me today, it's totally dedicated and honored in her name not mine, as far as I'm concerned!"
"That's very sweet, do you have any plans now to celebrate this win??"
"I'm actually just going to go get some ice cream with my boys! It's kind of a tradition between my father and I, so now were going to let Tom in on that tradition and go have some relaxing fun the rest of the day!"
"Well I will let you get to that Mattie, congratulations again and good luck tomorrow night in the all arounds." She smiled and walked off
I turned around and went back to the boys, and headed out to the nearest ice cream parlor, when we got there I of course got coffee ice cream with oreo bits mashed up in it, while Tom and my father were boring and got plain chocolate. We sat in a little booth talking about a bunch of random things from childhood memories to embarrassing stories, and listened to my dad talk about falling in love with my mom, how it was a lot like what we were going through now. I couldn't help but notice Tom staring at me the whole time my father was speaking, with this cute little grin on his face, like everything my dad was saying was exactly how he felt about me.
My dad dropped us off at our dorms and told us he was rooting for us just like the rest of the country, and many other parts of the world. I could tell that he was something special, and that he was going to ruin my life one day because I was already falling head over heels in love with everything about him, from his brown eyes and tan skin, all the way down to his toes. everything.
