Chapter 5

“Throw her as hard as you can.”

Tom Alan always felt a bit like an oafish giant next to his precious, tiny Erika. He felt as if everything they lacked, every medal they’d ever lost, had been his fault and his alone. He tried to be more graceful. He tried to move as he’d just seen Milo Fisher move.

Milo Fisher…

His mind was wandering. That wasn’t good. He needed to concentrate. A throw quad—any throw jump—wasn’t simply about heaving a girl like a football. It was intricate and complex. If he threw her too early, before she was ready, she would at best underrotate, land on two feet, or pop the jump. If he threw her too hard, she could overrotate and not be able to control the landing

“Hard!” Nobuo hollered, just as Tom Alan turned Erika.

As she was about to tap her toe pick into the rock-hard surface for liftoff, the coach repeated his command even louder: “Zenryoku!” in Japanese, “full force!”