00:00At the Pan American Junior Artistic Gymnastics Cup in El Salvador, Yandy Stafford qualified
00:06for the finals of the vault, beam and floor.
00:09The Bishop Anstey's high school student finished 6th in the floor and 7th in the beam finals.
00:15She needed to pull off a show-stopping move and had to perform the Yorchenko pike vault.
00:20It's a dangerous move, most famously performed by American Simone Biles, where a gymnast
00:25performs a backhand spring onto the vaulting table and then two backward flips in a pike
00:30with your legs as straight as possible.
00:33Guess what?
00:34She charged to the vault to flight and maintained her balance, securing a huge score of a 13.350
00:43and a historic gold medal.
00:45Hands in the air, she hugged the coach Clifton McDowell out of Tots and Tumbler's relief.
00:50I just try to visualize a lot and I apply the corrections when my coach tells me what I
01:04need to work on and I work very hard.
01:09I'm not surprised after seeing the athletes and what they were doing and knowing what Yandy
01:16could do.
01:17I signed from the beginning, I said we have a chance.
01:22What do you think is Yandy's strength?
01:24Her strength, she's a well all-around gymnast.
01:28Her strength is basically, if I had to name one thing as a strength, she's very quick, she's
01:33very strong.
01:34The Form 2 student has embraced the meaning of training.
01:37My training coming up, everything was good but beam, it was a little rough that week and
01:44I was excited because I never been to this kind of competition before and I just wanted
01:54to represent my country.
01:56She will have her challenges moving forward as she balances sport with education.
02:00How is school coming along for you?
02:01It's pretty difficult because I missed a lot of school this week and I have to catch up
02:13but I think I will be able to get back into it.
02:20Her parents are proud of her achievements.
02:23I'm exceptionally proud of our daughter, of Yandy's performance.
02:30She has been in gymnastics since the age of four.
02:33They promise that the wheels will not stop turning as long as Yandy still drops those gold
02:38medal performances.
02:40We are invested 100% and are prepared to go to the Olympics.
02:48That is the vision, you know, God willing.
02:52He described his daughter as humble.
02:55But not just the wins we appreciate, sometimes the little defeats as well, just help to, you
03:01know, keep your mind grounded and know that you still have some work to do.
03:06So, the wins we are very happy for, we are also happy for some of the failures too.
03:12Stafford was not the only star of the show as they all put their focus now on Karifta.
03:17This is Sergio Dufour, TV6 Sport.
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