Stick the Landing

by Kate McMurray

  Corey was up first for the Americans, and Alexei slapped his ass as he went. Jake could do without Alexei treating his athletes like football players, but it was a quirk of Alexei trying to seem more American. Lord knew American men’s gymnastics was full of men overcompensating for gymnastics generally being viewed as a girly sport, even though Jake could have easily bench-pressed his detractors.

  But Corey looked good on parallel bars now. His landing was a little wobbly, but it was a solid routine. Jordan and Brad were equally solid. No major mistakes. Everyone seemed to feel good after their routines. So Jake went to chalk up. Three above-the-bar skills, three below-the-bar skills, dismount. He had this.

  Well, yeah, of course he had this. No one was watching.

  He mounted the bars, swung into his first handstand, and mentally counted to five. Then he swung between the bars and threw himself up into a salto, coming out of the tuck in time to land on the bars with his arms. Then he swung again, twisted, and caught the bar with his hands, pushing into a handstand. That was one of his signatures, a move he was hoping they’d name the Mirakovitch, even though there already was a showy release move named after Valentin. Then he swung into another salto, caught the left bar, kept his body inverted, and pirouetted into a handstand on both bars. Three more skills later and he swung himself up and off the bars, doing another salto in the air before landing on his feet. Stuck landing, arms in the air, done.

  “We’re done,” said Alexei after Jake jogged over to the bench. “Viktor wants to have team meeting before we let you go away for the day. Room B in ten minutes.”

  Jake took a moment to catch his breath; then he grabbed his stuff and followed Corey out of the arena. “Good practice,” Corey said.

  “It was, yeah. We look great when no one’s watching.”

  “Actually, TBC broadcasted that.”

  Jake was so startled by this news that he tripped. “Are you kidding? I knew they were recording, but they actually broadcast it?”

  “Online, not on TV, but yeah. Commentators and everything. Natalie Pasquarella and some figure skater.”

  Topher.

  Why the thought of Topher watching him should squeeze Jake’s chest the way it did was a mystery. But he liked that Topher had seen him on a good day.

  And, well, Topher was nice to look at once one’s eyes adjusted. Kind of a pretty boy. Attractive in a tall and rangy way.

  “I know,” Jake said. “He interviewed me yesterday. The figure skater, I mean. Christopher Caldwell.”

  “The network makes strange choices.”

  “Not that strange. There are only four judged sports in the Olympics, right? Gymnastics, diving, synchronized swimming, and figure skating.”

  “And martial arts, kind of. Fencing.”

  “Okay, fine. Whatever. But figure skating and gymnastics have some things in common. They’re both judged sports. Both require absurd amounts of training. Both involve… twisting your body in the air.” Jake sighed, realizing it would be easy to lose this argument. “Besides, Natalie knows what she’s talking about.”

  “That’s true. I don’t know. I just wish they’d take us seriously. Do you know how much airtime men’s gymnastics got on TBC during the last Olympics? Twenty-two minutes. In total. I looked it up.”

  Jake winced. “Really?”

  “Yep. Two minutes of that was Jordan’s silver medal pommel horse routine. The rest was kind of a highlight reel of our collective spectacular failures. And sure, they’ve got your face all over the TBC website right now, but you know that unless we kill it in qualifiers, they’ll ignore us all again.”

  “So we kill it in qualifiers.” Jake followed Corey into the team meeting.

  Corey grunted. “Yeah. No problem. Easy as pie. Gold medals for everyone. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Jake rolled his eyes. “Don’t make me call Viktor over to give you the speech about attitude.”

  Corey sighed. “I want to win. I do. I just also want to keep my expectations reasonable. We’ve fucked this up in the past. Maybe this is the one time we don’t. But history is not exactly on our side. Do I think we can win gold medals? Yes. Do I think we will? That’s kind of up to the gods of gymnastics now.”

  Jake grunted because he didn’t necessarily disagree. He kept expecting this meet to feel different, but it didn’t. It had the benefit of not having really begun yet, so Jake hadn’t had the opportunity to fuck up anything so far, but whether he succeeded or failed felt out of his control.

  And then Valentin walked into the room.

  “I only have short time,” said Valentin.

  Jake was surprised to see him at all, given there were workers currently changing out the equipment in the arena so that podium training could begin for the women. On the other hand, in addition to being the women’s coach, Valentin was the head coach of all of USA Gymnastics, so although Viktor was the head men’s coach, Valentin was technically his boss.

  “We have opportunities to do something very special here,” Valentin continued. “I believe the eight gymnasts in this room are eight best in world. Trick will be not to think too hard.” Valentin tapped his temple. “This is Olympics, it is big stage. But use this moment to change expectations. You feel pressure, others think you will follow old patterns, so break patterns. Do gymnastics the way I know you can. Okay?”

  Everyone in the room murmured, “Okay.”

  Valentin never left room for argument, so he nodded once and moved toward the door, patting Jake’s shoulder on the way. When he was gone, Viktor said, “I have notes.”

  Jake sat down. There was nothing like a pep talk… followed by a catalogue of everything he was doing wrong.

  Chapter Five

  Day 0

  TEAM QUALIFIERS started the morning after the Opening Ceremony, so Jake opted to skip the event in favor of sleeping, as did most of his teammates. Sleep didn’t come, though. He lay awake in the room he shared with Corey, staring at the ceiling. Half the time he mentally rehearsed his routines; the other half he just fretted about falling on his face.

  Also Corey snored, which didn’t help matters.

  So Jake got out of bed.

  He wandered down the hall of the dorm building that housed the American delegation. Some teams had floors in the other buildings; Team USA was so big, it took up an entire building. So he felt like he walked among friends as he paced up and down the hall a couple of times. He wasn’t even the only one pacing; he recognized a female swimmer doing the same thing in another corridor.

  He arrived at the lounge set up on the corner of the floor. A man sat on a sofa inside, watching the opening ceremony on TV. He looked familiar, but Jake didn’t recognize him until he walked into the lounge and got a good look at his face.

  It was Isaac Flood. According to Corey’s issue of Sports Illustrated, everyone had thought him the second coming—at least in the pool; the second coming of Michael Phelps perhaps—until he’d fallen into a bottle and earned himself a couple of much-publicized DUIs. The article said Isaac had gone to rehab and made an impressive showing at the Olympic swim trials that year. Reading the article had jogged Jake’s memory of the last Olympics. Gymnastics and swimming schedules almost always overlapped, but Isaac had received an unavoidable amount of press attention.

  “Hey,” said Isaac. He was curled up on the lounge sofa, wrapped in a fleece blanket. Although some other athletes lingered in the hall, Isaac was alone in the lounge.

  “Hi. I’m Jake. How’s it going? Watching the Opening Ceremony?”

  “Yeah. Figured, what the hell? I’m swimming tomorrow, so I didn’t want to be there, but it’s kind of entertaining.”

  Jake stood beside the sofa and watched the screen for a few moments. An absurd number of dancers seemed to be doing some kind of folk dance in circles that formed the Olympic rings.

  “I gotta sleep,” Jake said, “but I’m too wound up.”

  “I know what you mean. I’m Isaac, by the way.”

  �
��I know. Everyone knows who you are, Isaac Flood. Wheaties box and all that.”

  Isaac sighed. “Right.”

  “I only bring it up because I’m jealous. I want a Wheaties box. This is my second Olympics. Everyone’s all ‘Jake Mirakovitch, he’s the one to beat this year,’ but I’m terrified. I’ve been nailing every one of my routines in practice, but I did four years ago too. And we all know how that went.”

  “I don’t know how that went,” Isaac said.

  Jake grimaced. What kind of bubble did this guy live in? “Probably best not to relive it. Let’s just say the team was a mess. First place going into the team final, and then we all choked. Me especially. Fell off the pommel horse. Whiffed one of my release moves on the high bar. Tenths of deductions here and there add up if you make enough mistakes. We were the gold medal favorites, but we came in sixth. Sixth!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Qualifiers are tomorrow, and I want to make at least two event finals and qualify for the All-Around. The women’s team has been raking up medals for years, but we’re a goddamned joke.”

  Isaac laughed softly. “Aren’t you supposed to be all, ‘We’re the best! We’re gonna win gold!’”

  “Publicly, sure. But you get it, right?”

  “I do. Nothing you can do, man, but your best.”

  “Do your best” seemed like odd advice from someone who had once been unambiguously one of the best swimmers in the world. “Yeah,” Jake said, a little baffled. “How do you prepare for a race?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, how do you keep from choking?”

  Isaac pulled his blanket tighter around him and looked toward the TV. “It helps when everyone has low expectations.”

  Jake scoffed. “When has anyone had low expectations of you?”

  Isaac laughed. “Fair. But swimming isn’t a team sport. I’m only letting myself down.”

  “But what about swim relays? That’s a team thing.”

  “I don’t know. I mean, it’s different. There’s some strategy, but at the end of the day, it’s about who swam the fastest. If I’m doing a relay, I push as hard as I can for my team. What else can I do?”

  Which made a certain amount of sense. Jake nodded. “Sure.”

  “It’s the Olympics. This is the pinnacle, right? I mean, there are World Cups, national championships, all that, but the Olympics is the thing everyone watches. Instead of letting that pressure get to you, you focus on yourself. It’s not about proving yourself or whatever. It’s about pushing your body to the limit of what it can do. Right? If I’m in a final, I push as hard as I can. I move my arms faster, harder. I put my all into it, until it feels like my body is on fire and I have to throw up. I race until I can’t breathe anymore. Because it’s not about being safe and comfortable, it’s about doing the absolute best that you can.”

  It’s not about being safe and comfortable. Jake had never considered his sport safe, and he had the scars on his body to prove it. But maybe Isaac had a point. Maybe Jake had been pulling his punches in international competition. There’d been such a long precedent of him making major mistakes on the global stage that maybe, subconsciously, Jake had been holding back. He’d been trying not to tear an ACL or get a concussion, trying not to break a bone or take himself out of the competition via injury, but maybe he’d been too safe, had tried to protect himself too much. Maybe he’d tightened up.

  Jesus. What a time to have that revelation. In about sixteen hours, he’d have to be in that fucking gym. “Okay,” he said, feeling a little overwhelmed.

  “I don’t know much about gymnastics,” said Isaac, “but the whole evolution of the sport is figuring out what the human body can do, right? Each Olympics, the sport has advanced. Sixty years ago, maybe you could win a gold medal by doing a cartwheel over the vault horse. Now you gotta flip in the air three times or whatever. You want to win, of course you do, but the thing to focus on is your training, your practice, doing the best you can within your ability. If you’re nailing those routines in practice, they’re yours. You know you can do them. So you don’t blink, you don’t falter, you push the nerves aside. It’s a big stage, yeah, but it’s also just a meet, you know?”

  God. Of course. Jake could do those routines. He could do them in his sleep. He could do them flawlessly. The only difference between practice and the Olympics was the audience, which didn’t play a role in his performance. This wasn’t really any different than a national meet that was only filmed on somebody’s mom’s phone. “You’re totally right. It’s just a meet.” The rest was nerves.

  “And you don’t worry about what the Chinese or the Russians or… who the heck is good at gymnastics? The Brits, the Japanese, whoever. Don’t worry about what they’re doing. You can’t control what they’re doing. But you can control yourself, and if you’re good, that medal’s yours. You nail your routine in the meet, it’s yours.”

  Jake nodded. “I never really thought about it that way. I mean, I completely understand what you’re saying. But my coach is always, ‘you need to do this, Jake, you need to do that.’ Hosuke from Japan does this triple layout dismount from the high bar, so I have to do it higher, more perfect. Boskovic from Russia does this pommel horse routine that he once scored a sixteen with, so I have to make mine more difficult.”

  “Do you love gymnastics?”

  “Huh?” What the hell kind of question was that?

  “If you know who I am, you know what happened. And my life, it’s all swimming. I love swimming. I love the feel of the water on my skin. I love the thrill of racing. I’d spend most of my life in a pool if I could. I got back into swimming after rehab because it made me feel sane again. Anyone at this level has to love their sport. Do you love gymnastics?”

  “Of course,” Jake said. “I see your face, but I do love it. I love tumbling. I love that thrill of flying over the high bar. Of sticking a landing. And I… I like the burn when I push my body as far as it goes.”

  “Get that burn back. That’s the ticket to winning. Forget about everything else.”

  “You’re one hundred percent right.” The burn. Jake had to find the burn again.

  “And if you lose, you lose. What happens? The TV network talks about how disappointing it is, and it is disappointing to lose, but whatever, you’ll be back in the gym in two weeks doing what you love again, and that’s all that’s important. I mean, really, fuck everything else. Fuck the gold medal, fuck the Wheaties box, just get out there and do the goddamn best you can do. If anyone thinks it’s not good enough, fuck ’em.”

  Jake laughed. “So that’s how you became the second most decorated swimmer of all time? ‘Fuck ’em.’”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. It doesn’t make for a good postevent sound bite, though.”

  Isaac held up his hands in a “so what?” gesture. “I don’t swim to get good press.”

  Jake and Isaac watched the pomp on TV for a minute before Jake said, “Does it just go on like this for a while?”

  “The host cities are always trying to outdo each other. Hundreds of years of Spanish history distilled into one flourish of artistic expression.”

  “You know, I think I can sleep now.”

  Isaac laughed.

  Jake went back to his room, turning over everything Isaac had said. This was, in all likelihood, the last Olympics Jake would ever compete in, so why not push himself to the limit? Why not risk broken bones and torn ligaments and concussions? Why not go all out to win that gold medal that by rights should have been his long ago, if he could only get out of his own way?

  It was just a meet, yes. It was also the most important meet of Jake’s life. But the latter didn’t matter. He could get scores of sixteen or higher on every apparatus. He could do some of the most difficult skills in the world, with the highest difficulty levels. He was the reigning American champion. He had gymnastics in his blood—almost literally. This meet was his to lose.

&n
bsp; So he wouldn’t lose. He would win this time.

  So decided, he crawled into bed. He put in earplugs so he wouldn’t have to listen to Corey snoring. And he slept like a baby.

  TOPHER SIPPED from his third glass of sangria as he and Natalie watched the Opening Ceremony while sitting at the bar in their hotel.

  “So we’re totally BFFs now, by the way,” Natalie said, tossing her long, honey-colored hair over her shoulders. “I had more fun today than on any other broadcast I’ve ever done.”

  Topher laughed and fished a cube of apple out of his glass. “I’m glad. I learned a lot.” Which he had, although he’d had a lot of fun with Natalie too. They’d probably giggled more during the broadcast than the network would have approved of, although after they’d wrapped, Joanna had told him she’d liked their rapport. Topher wasn’t exactly angling for a gig commentating over gymnastics, but he wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to work with Natalie again.

  Natalie laughed. “You learned which male gymnasts you thought were hot.”

  “So did you. Let’s see how similar our tastes are. I mean that one guy from Russia. Er, what was his name? Boskovic?”

  “Yeah. He is hot, I’ll give you that. But in kind of a Soviet way. I look at him and worry that he and his KGB comrades are coming to kill me.”

  Topher affected a bad Russian accent. “In Soviet Russia, gymnastics does you.”

  “Exactly. And then there’s the tall blond one from the Netherlands. Ah, Leland?”

  “Yes. He was very pretty. It’s a shame the Dutch uniforms are so hideous. He doesn’t look great in orange.”

  “The ones they had at the World Championships were pale blue. Maybe they’ll break those back out for the team competition. They’re a little easier on the eyes.”

  Topher nodded. “And, of course, we have to talk about Jake Mirakovitch.”

  “Oh, yeah. I had a crush on him for a long time after we met. He’s a total sweetheart on top of being a super hottie. I don’t know how anyone gets anything done when he’s around.”