The Changing Face of Paralympic Competition

I had a busy day but not many pictures to show for it. The day started at 7:30 – which felt like 6:30 because of daylight saving time. We had to stay up and negotiate new ticket allotments for our families since bad weather has played havoc on the downhill skiing schedule. So parents who had tickets to see their kids compete on Sunday were going to be hugely disappointed since all the race days were changed. Not a big deal if you’re the general public, but a huge issue if you’ve spent years watching a child learning to race – only to miss his/her big race at the Paralympics. Fortunately, VANOC figures it out but not until the wee hours of the morning. . Since we didn’t get to bed until after midnight, the alarm is somewhat painful. Finally, time to do laundry before I run out of clean clothes. I always try to wait a bit, and let other people test how coulourfast the team clothes are before I launder my own garments. We’re always in a rush, there are few machines, and matching colours is not always an option. A leaky red shirt can do a lot of damage to the rest of your wardrobe! While doing the laundry, we watched the feisty Italian hockey team that gave us some trouble yesterday almost beat the Norwegians, which would have been a huge upset. The Italians scored one goal the entire tournament in Torino but have used the home games to spearhead talent development, something we Canadians need to do as well. The Swedes, who beat us to the bronze medal in Salt Lake City, have stagnated and their game has not evolved over time, They rely on a few better players who will spend as much as 10 minutes on the ice at a time whereas we change every minute or so. We destroy them, 10-1, in front of a full house of Canadian fans, and they are lucky to get a single goal out of their meager three shots for the entire game. It’s a good lesson for us in terms of the need to develop new talent. In interviews, I often place this as one of my top goals for the home games – make kids, and their parents, want to get involved in parasport. Parents are generally a bit overprotective these days, and parents of kids with a disability are even more so. However, these kids can learn great skills through sport and develop confidence and tenacity that will serve them well later in life. Last night we held a reception to thank our families and friends for their support. We’ll do the same in Whistler this evening. Our volunteers are busy assembling a small gift for our families and friends. I ended up being the lone MC for this event as Blair, our Chef de Mission, stayed in Whistler to attend the ceremony for the first ever Paralympic medal on home soil. This first medal goes to Colette Bourgonje, a school teacher from Saskatchewan I blogged about from Torino. She competes in both Summer and Winter games and this will be her ninth games – and she keeps beating competitors literally half her age. She won silver and immediately gave credit to the wax technicians for a fabulous job. One thing is for sure, Paralympians know how to say thank you. We got two more silver medals yesterday in Alpine skiing – Vivian Forrest in the visually impaired class, and Josh Dueck in the sit ski class. It was a very good day indeed, topped by our curling team coming back from a 3-0 deficit and stealing two in the last end to win by one. Over 300 people came to the reception last night – a success again. Dare I say thing are going almost too smoothly? We know there will be some rough patches but to date everything is humming along. Besides my role on the team, I am also on the Board of Directors for the Canadian Paralympic Committee and my fellow Board members are all smiles after the Toronto Star put our Paralympic ad campaign on the from page today. It’s tough to complain about anything right now. I’m heading up to Whistler today and bringing my ski boots, although my schedule and the weather forecast don’t look too promising for me to put them on even for a couple of runs. However, by mid-week the forecast is for several days of sun and temperature in double digits. I hope you are enjoying the coverage. We certainly are proud of what we have achieved as a team to date. Spread the word!

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