6th Place Never Looked This Proud

October 2, 2011

Gainesville, GA

Tessa competed in the dock diving event at PetFest this weekend - she was entered 3 times, and at 2 jumps per wave, she got a total of 6 jumps. At first she jumped 14'9" (click for video), 14' and 14'5" but then we had a Tessa malfunction: She started to run down the dock at her usual full speed, only to stop dead at the edge of the dock where she hesitated, then jumped - 8'. But it would get worse - eventually, she refused to jump at all, despite encouragement from me, the crowd and the announcer. Timing out is not like her at all - and I don't know what happened.

But: the 14'9" jump from Saturday secured her a place in the Junior finals (this was our third competition and each time she made the Junior finals). Some people who saw her jump (or rather, not jump) on Sunday only wondered how we ended up in the finals. Sadly, she didn't come out of her funk for the finals, but at least she jumped, albeit only 9 feet or so. She placed last in the Junior finals - 6th place, and still got this wonderful ribbon and it's orange, which is a color she wears well and proudly. Maybe that was the master plan - to take home some orange?

In retrospect, it's actually cool that even though she had a sub-par weekend, she still managed to make it to the finals. Suspecting burn-out as the cause of her not jumping, we will take a break until the next season starts up, and then skip practice and only jump at events, and see how that goes.

After the event, she was rewarded with a quick visit to the beach and a swim in the lake.