The State Games of
America
In August 2007, when I was 6 years
old, I qualified to compete in a figure skating competition located in Colorado
Springs, Colorado. When my family got there, we were invited to a big opening
ceremony event. All my cousins and friends and I from Maine were really
excited. The next day I competed in the freestyle event with my “beautiful
program,” as I called it. I competed against the whole country and I was really
nervous. I skated in the beginner level against many other little 7 year old
girls, in fact there were about twenty! I felt very happy with my performance
after I competed, I got fourth place, which was super exciting. Fourth place did
not receive a medal but I did get to be in newspapers all over the country,
which was awesome! I finished competing for a while after that. I didn’t skate
again for another couple of days.
The next day my cousins, Amanda Ben
and Connie competed. I felt so happy and excited to support them and watch them
skate. Amanda competed against some of her friends from Maine which, was kind
of upsetting. It’s always hard when you have to compete against your friends
because the results might tear your friendship apart. Amanda skated beautifully
however, and it did not bother her at all that one of her friends scored a
higher placement than she did. I looked up to her for that. Everybody was ready
to compete again the next day, including my cousins. We all competed in the Showcase
event, which is my favorite part of competitions. This is where you wear real
costumes and perform to fun music. My music was “Buffalo Gals,” “Skip to My
Lou,” and “Polly Wolly Doodle” all mashed up together, and I wore a wonderful
little cowgirl outfit covered with rhinestones and sparkles.
I felt nervous, let me tell you!
There were ten girls in my group and five of them were wearing cowgirl outfits
like mine. Now you may think, how could I beat them? I was only six back then and it didn’t bother
me much, because I was just worried about them having the same music as me! I skated
onto the ice for my warm-up and saw the other girls practicing. I started
getting really scared but then realized that being nervous would not make a
good impression on the judges so I tried smiling instead! My family said that I
smiled so big and so hard that it looked like my teeth were popping out! The
announcer called my name. “And now Miss Sophie Calderwood representing the
Skating Club of Brunswick and the state of Maine.” I grabbed my 5 foot tall light up moon and
carried it to center ice, took my opening pose, and skated like my life
depended on it! I felt so impressed with my performance and so did my family
and coach! We waited an hour to get the results. We were about to leave because
my one year old sister started to cry
and disturbed everybody, when Travis, my friend Shania’s brother, shouted out,
she got first! I ran to the scoreboard yelling “What?!” and realized it was
true. As you can imagine, my family and coach were so proud of me, me too! Now,
among my 65 medals, that big gold one that I won at the State games of America,
in Colorado Springs, is still my favorite.
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