On to Beijing

We have completed the camp and in a few short hours will be flying into Beijing. We are now all well adapted to the time change and the groups of swimmers are training well with their respective coaches.

A team tradition is to have a gift exchange prior to every major meet. All are instructed to buy a $10.00 item, which is then put on a central table. The items are wrapped and usually disguised to look far more attractive than they actually are! Each swimmer and staff pulls a number from a hat and chooses a gift or takes a gift already opened. A particular gift can only be “stolen” twice. This leads to strategy and at times genuine disappointment, especially if a particularly valuable gift is removed from the clutching hands of its transient owner! On this trip high currency gifts were the coffee mugs, a Canada bag with 5 lucky Loonies, a Tim Hortons certificate. There are also old rivalries, Pierre Lamy remains bitter with Shane Esau about loosing a T-shirt in the exchange in Rio. Out of spite he happily removed Shane’s last gift item! Somehow I held onto the Pierre Cardin pens until the last round. I had to open the last gift…










This team is different. The swimmers on average are younger and for many this is their first Paralympics. The staff is different. No one has roles that are set in stone and many of the support staff multi-task. The manager manages and taps and guides and mentors. The coaches coach on deck and then organize out of the water activities to help bond the team and eliminate boredom. Shane does physiology, is on deck, advises us on how the swimmers are adapting and offered to do the staff washing! This was recognized at the gift exchange. Shane is pictured here with his custom made maid's outfit.










Multi tasking also means that the athletes are helping one another. Here is a picture of Stephanie McDougal on the escalator to the train platform. In fact the escalator can be adapted so that 2 stairs coalesce to form a platform. The staff is very helpful, but it does take time.

Yesterday we had Ruskos as usual at 6:45. The team has been very good at getting to the testing on time. I am usually there early to look at the patterns of heart rates with Shane. Donovan usually comes down with his roommate Joe Barker. They were late and I phoned the room, no answer, a good sign they were on the way. I walked to meet the elevator. About 6 swimmers got off, including Joe, but no Donovan! A well-meaning teammate had put him on the elevator and then waited for her roommate. He ended up in the basement and I was relieved to see him escorted to out of the elevator by a kindly, unilingual maintenance man!

Yesterday we went to a local ball game. The stadium is state of the art and holds 40,000 fans. The game was entertaining, the home team winning and lots of home runs. The seventh inning stretch is quite a scene, many fans with balloons and all singing the team song. In the end the balloons are released, about 10,000 of them, forming a sea of random blue and pink.