Tuesday, September 16, 2008

On the 13 July just after the school bell rang declaring the end of the school Ms Loizidou said goodbye to her students and emptied out the rest of the classroom. Little did Katerina know that once she returned home she would get a phone call from France’s tennis Olympic team’s coach Guillaume Peyre asking her to fly out to Beijing immediately. 8 years ago Katerina had been ranked no.1 tennis player in France, but then she made a mysterious disappearance and moved to Cyprus when she found out she was pregnant with her eldest son Mario. Katerina was wanted all of a sudden because Frances new no.1 tennis player, Richard Gasquet pulled out of the Olympics, and Katerina was tracked down and was asked to be his replacement. A couple days later Katerina kissed goodbye her boys, and left them at her mother’s house. As Katerina arrived at Larnaca Airport she was mobbed by fans.

When she arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport, Katerina was welcomed by the rest of the french team. She was showed to her apartment at the Olympic Village, and was in heaven. Besides training hard (she was a little rusty, after not playing for a good couple of years), Katerina visited all the usual tourist places, such as the great wall of China, Jin Yuan mall, markets and the Forbidden City. Katerina met her all her favourite athletes, like Michael Phelps, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, The Williams sisters and loads more. When the time came for Katerina to play in the tournament, Katerina made an amazing comeback and easily made her way to the women’s final.

Katerina’s sons Mario and Emanuel flew to Beijing along with the rest of Katerina's family to see the finals. Katerina was playing Venus Williams, and went onto the courts nervous, and left victorious. The game was close, but Katerina just managed to thrash Venus. Not only did Katerina win the gold medal for France, Katerina also got Rafael Nadal’s phone number. Guillaume Peyre tried to persuade Katerina to start up her career again, but she thought it was a one-off and would miss her students at AISC too much. Katerina wanted to get back to Cyprus as soon as possible, so she could go to the beach with her family before school started, but only after her date with Rafael. When September came around and it was time to go back to school. When students asked what Katerina did over the summer, Katerina said with a smile “Nothing much”.