The Fall
“ Representing Great Britain, Charles Vane! “ The announcer had shouted and Charles emerged to a stadium of cheers and photos. Like some of the other world famous athletes, he had to stand and pose for a moment or two, smiling and showing complete calm. On the inside? It had been butterflies.
All of his training had been for this. These next few days of competition were the culmination of four years, or in his case, far more; of practice. Charles Vane had won a silver medal for Great Britain a day prior in the team event. The Japanese were his biggest competitors, closely followed by the US, by a slim margin, but an athlete named Shinnosuke Oka was his only real challenger. Now it was the individual all-around, where he had to do well in each event for a combined score and was definitely the hardest thing for a gymnast to do. He had to be amazing in every event, but gymnasts had their strong points and weak points. For Charles, his strongest events were the horizontal bars and rings. His weakest? Floor exercise.
But so far he was on a roll. He’d scored extremely high in the vault and parallel bars, and his lower score in floor barely mattered because of it. Rings is where he felt his first threat from Oka, which the announcers definitely stressed. The way the two gymnasts looked at each other? The tension was palpable. Every once in awhile, he’d look up in the stands to find his father’s face which was easy since he was such a behemoth of a man. He’d stand up, he’d cheer, he’d roar, and not too far away in the massive arena sat James. His eyes found his over and over, looking to him for encouragement; especially after floor as he hadn’t done as well, but now was uneven bars. He was ready. He’s got this. It was his last event. Excitement was in the air, and again he was lifting his eyes through the masses of people to look at James as he adjusted his hand braces with a deep breath. Calm. Calm.
