1999 Parkette Invitational


Written 1999 © Stephanie Schneider

Location: Parkette National Training Center (Allentown, PA)
Date: January 29-31, 1994

This meet showcased some of today’s top elite gymnasts, as well as gymnasts in levels 7-10, and many of today’s top clubs, such as Hill’s Angels and Capital, were in attendance.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am from Johnstown, PA, which as you may know is the hometown of current jr. sensation, Kristal Uzelac. She trained at my gym, Johnstown Turners, until 1994, when she left for the Parkettes seeking better training. Many of her relatives, however, remain in Johnstown, including three of her aunts, which are also my gym coaches. So, as you can imagine, our gym is very close with everyone from the Parkettes.

The opportunity to attend this meet presented itself to me about one week previous to the competition. The parents of our gym were talking about traveling to Allentown that weekend to see Kristal compete, and the moment I heard that, I knew I could not let this wonderful opportunity slip away. So the arrangements were made, and on January 31, we left for one of the best weekends of my life.

The actual meet didn’t start until 7:00 P.M., but we left before noon, so we could have time to check into our hotel and go to Kristal’s house. Anyway, we arrived in Allentown at around 4:30, and after we got done with everything we had to do, we went to Kristal’s house to meet everyone else we were going with. Let me tell you, this was the first time I had ever had the chance to be in her house, and even though I know her and everything, I couldn’t help thinking, Wow, I’m in KRISTAL UZELAC’S house! I even got to play with her dogs and see her room. She has this cute little calendar, called “Kristal’s Moments”, and it has pictures of her from when she was really young to now. We were there for about a half-hour, and then we left for the gym.

This was also my first experience being in the Parkette gym and all I can say is that I was in awe! It is huge, and really nice. It might not be the biggest gym in the country, but compared to my gym, it was heaven! We attended the Open Optional session, which was all of the elites in the competition. We were there about a half-hour early, so we had time to walk around and explore. We went over to the warm-up area and said hi to Kristal, but she couldn’t talk for long because she had to get ready for the meet. When we were over there, I saw Monique Chang and Ashley Postell. Monique looked very different from when I last remembered seeing her at the 97 International Team Championships. She had grown and looked much older. But I still recognized her and Ashley, and, being the huge gym fan that I am, I thought it was so cool that I was that close to them! Little did I know what was to come!!

When we were walking back to our seats, we saw Kristen Maloney! She looks SO much smaller in person! Though she wasn’t competing because of the stress fracture in her shin, she made a special appearance at the beginning of the meet with Kendall Beck, who is now training at the Parkettes (and also wasn’t competing because of an injury). Though we were originally sitting in the bleachers with everyone else, we ended up sitting on the opposite side, over in the pit area, which was actually INSIDE the competition area! We were like inches away from the gymnasts! It was incredible!

Anyway, the meet soon began, and I very soon realized how hard it is to see everything in a gymnastics competition. When the gymnasts marched out, I saw Elise Ray and Kelli Hill! Elise has become one of my favorite gymnasts recently; she is so artistic. I know she is going to be a star in the future. She only competed on bars and floor, and she had a couple mistakes, but she still looked great. Her artistry is just years beyond everyone else. I was really looking forward to seeing her famed triple twist, punch front; she ended up doing just the triple, but it was awesome nonetheless.

Kristal seemed to get the loudest applause because it’s her home gym and she had a lot of support. She had a fall on bars but looked great everywhere else. Ashley looked good too but pulled out of floor. Mainly I kept my eyes on Kristal, Elise, Ashley, and Monique, but a few other gymnasts did catch my eye. Erinn Dooley, from Hill’s, impressed me especially on bars and floor. She has some really unique elements, like a barani over the low bar for her bars mount, a Markelov on bars, and a front full through to double pike on floor. She is a very powerful gymnast. Sheehan Lemley and Breasha Pruitt, from the Parkettes, got our attention, and we were cheering for them all competition. They weren’t the best gymnasts there, but you could tell they were working really hard for everything that they did.

I thought it was neat to see Jack Carter coaching all the Parkette girls. We were literally right next to the apparatus so we really got some first hand experience. At one point, my friend Heather pointed out that Kelli Hill was RIGHT next to us. Neither one of us knew what to say though.

Overall, it was a fun meet to watch; only a few gymnasts there were well-known national team members, but it was fun to watch gymnastics on such a high level. After the meet was over, they started giving out awards. Kristal won her age division easily and also placed 1st on every event except bars where she was 4th. I got a couple pictures of her on the awards stand. Monique Chang also won her age division, and Elise Ray won floor in her age division. Some other names that I recognized during awards were Cory Fritzinger and Alexis Brion whom I hadn’t noticed in the meet.

We went over to the front of the floor to talk to Kristal’s dad, Donnie, while they were handing the awards out. He was videotaping the meet; you could tell he was really proud of her. The awards took a long time, so after the first two age divisions, which basically included everyone that we were following, we went back over to the pit area. By this time, we were all full of energy, so we actually started doing some stuff into the pit and on the one tumble strip that they had. You landed in these really soft, bouncy mats, so it wasn’t even scary to try something new. It was so much fun; we did that for about a half-hour.

By this time, some of the gymnasts were leaving, and after a few minutes, I saw Elise Ray, and I got one of my teammates to walk over with me to say hi. I told her good job, and she thanked me and gave me a really nice smile. She seemed so nice. After that we went over to congratulate Kristal and Ashley, and we got autographs from them, as well as some pictures with all of us and Kristal.

After that, we found out that they were having a little dance party for the gymnasts, and we really wanted to stay so we convinced everyone that we were with to let us stay :). I was so excited by this time; we went around trying to get autographs for a while. We wanted to find Kristen Maloney, but I think she had left earlier. We got to talk to Jack Carter and John Holman (two of the Parkette coaches) for a couple minutes, and we got their autographs. I also got Breasha Pruitt’s autograph who I saw signing for some other people. We went back to the warm-up area and did some stuff on the floor for a while, which was really fun because it was so bouncy. After a while, they started playing music, and they had spotlights and everything. So we went out on the floor and danced for a while until it was over. A lot of the gymnasts, including Kristal and Ashley, who we got to talk to some more, were out there, along with us and some of the coaches. It was so cool being in the midst of everyone like that. I think I enjoyed that even more than the actual competition. I never wanted to leave. This meet was definitely the most amazing experience I’ve ever had, and I hope to have many more just like it in the future.

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