… Everyone who has seen an Alabama gymnastics meet over the past three-plus years waits for this moment. Whether she is first in the lineup or toward the end, when Ashley Sledge steps up for her uneven bars routine, all eyes focus on her. …
“The funny thing about that is that it took me like six years to learn that dismount,” Sledge said. “I could not get it – I just could not do it. I didn’t do that dismount until the year before I got to college and I had only competed it once because I tore my Achilles the first meet I competed it (on a different event). But I love that dismount. That’s probably the skill that I’ll miss the most when I finish gymnastics, just being able to crank my giants and fly.”
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“I really think about the mechanics when I’m doing it because I try to keep it really rhythmic,” Sledge said. “For me, it goes down, up, down, up, down, up, stick – that’s what I say when I do it. I can definitely tell when it’s on — I don’t like for it to spin too fast and I don’t like it when it goes too high — there’s definitely a sweet spot and I know exactly when I’m in it.”
“I’ll miss the sense of team – I couldn’t be an individual gymnast anymore,” Sledge said. “Individual accomplishment isn’t important to me anymore; I’m not in this for me. It’s not what drives me. Just knowing that 16 other people are counting on me to do my job, that’s what gets me thinking, `Okay, let’s do this, let’s get this.'” …
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