Kids and sport 2018-19

Once again, this post is about athletics. Mostly it is about our athletic kids. Sport was always a big part of my life while growing up and it was a big part of Spencer’s life as well. I was mostly into winter sports (growing up in Siberia does that to you!), he was (and is) into basketball. Our kids chose track and figure skating (the last one made me a very proud mama) as their sport and they have been doing it for the last 4 years.

They run in track meets every couple of months. They have a very good coach now who really cares about the kids. These pictures are from one of their track meets in the fall in which Nika and the twins ran (Lina decided not to for whatever reason). 

Opening ceremony.  Everything here has to have an opening ceremony).

Lexa and Sophie (Sophie injured her leg a bit the day before and wasn't running as she usually does).

Double trouble.

Nika is running with the older group.

After the meet with friends.

In figure skating this year the coach decided to make a synchronizing skating team. The first performance the kids did was at the opening of the skating season at the biggest mall in town. After that they were invited to perform a few times before big hockey games. Lina and Lexa quit figure skating earlier but after seeing the other two perform with their teammates, they decided to join the team.

Nika and Sophie in their Shamany (medicine women) costumes.

Getting ready for the performance.

This performance was shown on the local news. Nika and Sophie are in the first row.

With the young volunteers from our church, Sisters Nelson and Critchfield.

Here are pictures from their other performances, mostly before hockey games.

In December they had a competition and took second place with their Tango Dance.

Getting some encouragement from their coach before the competition.

Nika and Sophie.

Nika

Lina and Lexa.

After the performance.

The team was supposed to go to Russia and to Almaty for competitions but the ice-making machine at the rink where they were training broke down so the team couldn't practice together for 3 weeks (they divided into smaller groups and practiced at other rinks in the city but not all together) which meant they couldn't get ready for the competition. Oh well. They are back to their rink now and are preparing for the individual competitions that are supposed to take place sometime in May.

Track and field

This year all four of our girls have been going to track and Field at the Children's Palace. Usually only Nika is old enough to go to the city track meets but in April all kids had an opportunity to try themselves in a track meet. It wasn’t a big one, just for the kids from their track and field class but still probably about 30 kids participated. They ran in groups according to their age and pretty much everyone won something. All four of our girls placed. Nika took the first place in her age group. Lina ran in the same heat as Nika, and came in third but because she was the only one in her age group, they gave her first place. Sophie and Lexa ran against each other and took first and third respectively. They were all happy.

Stretching before the meet. As always things started 30 minutes late (In Kazakhstan there is no concept of time but it will be a whole other post sometime later)

Nika and Lina running in their heat. The twins ran so fast that I didn't have time to focus my camera on them (of course, they also ran a much shorter distance).

The funny part was during the awards ceremony. For whatever reason they had a television that day. In fact our kids have been on television a couple of times this year. So, they sat up the podium and put some presents on each place. One would think the presents would go to the kids winning the 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd places. Nope! They took pictures of the podium with the presents and then promptly took the presents away before the winners stepped on the podium. It was just for the television. Oh well, the kids were happy anyway.

Here is the set up with the presents for the photo only!

Nika took first, and her best friend took second (notice the presents on the left side behind the poster board).

Like I said, Lina was the only one in her age group, so they stuck her with another heat's winner.

And the twins. Sophie was running head to head with the girl who took second place but she wasn't going to let anybody else win, so in the last 3 seconds she stretched her body forward and won by a head.

All the participants. Their coach, Magzhan, is on the left in a blue shirt.

Our crew.

Track Meet - November 2016

Back in November Nika and Lina both had a track meet. It was city-wide for children in Astana. Our kids ran in the youngest 2004-2005 category for 150 meters, so Lina wasn't even supposed to run (she was born in 2006) but her coach thought she should give it a try. She did really well. Their coach asked me how come Lina didn't come training last year when Nika started, because she has a lot of potential. Well, Lina objects to a lot of things when she thinks she wouldn't like them.

This year Sophie wanted to do track with Nika, and Lexa wanted to do whatever Sophie was doing. So, since the other three kids were doing it, I asked Lina if she wanted to give it a try. She refused saying that she doesn't like running. I then said that she should try it for 2 weeks, and then if she didn't like it, I wouldn't make her. Well, after the first lesson it turned out that she didn't like it, she LOVED it! And that is how it is with Lina a lot of time. She also made good friends there. Here are a few pictures from the meet. I didn't end up taking any pictures of Nika running because she ran so fast, I wasn't ready with my camera.

Nika watching her sister run after she finished her own run

Lina's very first track meet

Getting her results

Sisters and partners

Waiting for the reward ceremony to start.  Nika's in the back row with Lina.

Track and Field

Nika has being doing track. At the beginning of the school year I asked the girls what they wanted to do for their extra curricular activities. They all wanted to try different things but since there are only 24 hours in a day, I told them that the oldest two can pick two activities, and the twins can pick one (and if they can keep up with their school work, then the next year they can pick a second activity). I wanted all girls to do some sort of sport, and they all picked figure skating. It has been really good for them. They have a great coach and they improved dramatically in their skating skills in the last few months.

Then Nika and Lina picked guitar classes as their second activity (the twins really wanted to do violin but we decided to wait until the next year). Those have been awesome! Again they ended up with a great teacher, and they love it!

All of the activities are done in the Children's Palace which is kind of like a huge rec center with all kinds of sports, art, science, music, linguistic, craft and many, many more activities. And here is how Nika ended up with the third one, absolutely by accident. She and Lina were at their figure skating class which consists of one hour on the ice and a half an hour in the gym every time they come to practice. During their first gym practice their coach had them run a couple of laps on the indoor track. Then all of a sudden Nika shows up in the waiting room and says that the coach wants to talk to me. It turns out that it was the track and field coach who wanted to talk to me. She saw Veronika running on the track and went to beg her figure skating coach to let her go, so she could come and do track with her team. She is a 7-time national champion for Kazakhstan in track and said that Nika was born to run. Nika decided to give it a try and after the first day she fell in love with it. But she didn't want to give up figure skating, so she is doing all three now. Her track coach is super excited to train her, which is nice.

Nika is a little too young to go to track meets, but her coach wanted her to get a feel for it, so she sent her to a couple of meets already. The second time Nika took 6^th place in a 300 meters event, which is great! She is really enjoying it, and we are proud of her for not being afraid of trying new things in a foreign country.

The following pictures are from the two track meets that Nika participated in.

Getting ready to run in her very first meet

Getting ready to start

Running 300 meters (Nika is on the left, in blue)

All the kids that participated in the meet