3, 2, 1, Toky-Go!
Oh Tokyo, you sweet temptress. Okay, before I dwell on the results and brood about my inability to finish better than 4th at a Paralympics (seriously, two in a row…C’mon Sam!), let's check off the Tokyo 2020/1 list in order and do this right.
My final couple of weeks before flying out to Tokyo were spent in Canberra, for some final preparation, training and a soft quarantine period. But let’s gloss over this, because it was ages ago and this blog is already going to have too much to cover… (plus no one wants to read about my bleeding urethra, sorry TMI!)
Canberra -> Sydney -> Cairns -> Tokyo!
Flash Forward! *Cue flash of smoke!*
It was time! We had tetris-ed the Canberra squad, staff and luggage into three identical minivans and were on the way to Sydney to catch our first flight. The drive was smooth and emphatic reminiscing of early 2000’s pop punk filled the cabin of the car… okay this is way too much detail… think blog, not novel, Sam. We caught up with the rest of the Athletics team in Sydney, and after making our way through the ghost-like international terminal, started our journey over to Tokyo, with a stop in Cairns (to pick up the athletes in the training camp there). How was the flight? Honestly it was great, the buzz of heading to a Paralympics combined with the revived novelty of being able to travel internationally after so long was fantastic!
We landed in Tokyo at around 6am and started the international arrival process into Japan, and for a COVID arrival system with what seemed like 20 steps, it moved surprisingly fast. The slowest part was having to do saliva testing and waiting for the whole team's results to come back negative before we were allowed to leave. A few episodes of Community (The TV show) passed the time and we were out through customs, picking up our luggage and being ushered onto transport to the Village.
Home Sweet Village
It always surprises me how expansive the Athletes' Villages are. I suppose it’s hard to imagine housing the 4,400 athletes and goodness knows how many staff for the two weeks. When you first enter the Village and see rows of high towering apartment blocks lined with different countries' flags, people flooding the side paths all wearing their team uniforms and pass by the huge dining hall (could you imagine having to cater for that many people!!), it really illustrates the enormity of what the next two weeks have in store before you even see a competition venue!
The Australian building was fantastic! One of the benefits of sending such a large team was being able to have an entire building practically to ourselves. This was great at keeping our “Aussie Mob'' safe in our own little COVID safe bubble throughout the Games. It was set up with snack bars for grab-and-go goodies for the team, our own gym, our recovery area, rooms for physio and medical services, as well as the amazing ‘Tuck Shop’ that we had all our meals out of each day. We weren’t allowed into the dining hall like in previous Games and had all our meals on our Aussie allotments to minimise our contact with other international athletes (boo, COVID).
This leads me into the all important vibe check of the Games. Heading into the Games we (at least from everyone I’ve talked to) weren’t really sure what to expect and how much freedom outside of our rooms we were going to have. But the huge advantage of having our own little bubble was that it meant, like it or not, the whole team and every different sport ate together, hung out together, and cheered for each other. It’s by far the best, most positive and supportive community feeling of any of the past Games and definitely not something I’m going to forget. 10/10.
Pre-Competition: Battling the Heat!
Anyways, after arriving and setting up our apartment, I was rooming with Rheed McCracken and Sammy Carter ICYWTK, I quickly started my daily routine of pre-cooling and training before my competition events. And, after just typing ‘pre-cooling’, I should really mention the sheer heat of Japan's summers! The first week and a half was smothered with 34 - 38 degrees celsius days and at times the humidity was smothering, some of the training sessions out on the athletic tracks hit 42 degrees! As I’ve touched on in previous blogs, the necessity to pre-cool and keep my internal temperature down was high on the priority list!
Heat aside, training was going great, feeling fast and injury free felt amazing after previous Games disasters, the only real annoyance was that the transport to get to the track was at times a bit of a shambles. London 2012 is still winning in the Paralympics transport competition if you're interested.
Race Time!
After a few good days of training and acclimating to the weather my first event rolled around. The 400m. While I’ve never particularly been competitive in this distance, the event gave me a perfect opportunity to practice my pre-race routine, go through the marshaling/call room experience and have a race to blow off some cobwebs after not racing internationally for close to two years. Another stinking hot day greeted me as expected, and everything worked out perfectly as we had planned, even managing a season's best time which I was particularly happy with. All in all, it gave me a huge confidence boost as I headed towards my 100m the next week.
Training continued to go well but drama was on the horizon. The rain was coming!
My 100m race day arrived with a splash, followed by many thousands of other tiny other splashes. Imagine if you will, rain. By the time we made it to the track I was already partially soaked which, while is never that fun, wasn’t too high on my worry list as I had to get in the chair and warm up in the rain anyway… which is where trouble started to arise. Almost immediately it was apparent that the kilster/ push rim glue that we use in the rain to grip wasn’t working. Unfortunately, the glue can be temperamental at times and this was one of them, quickly burning through time as I tried to get it to tack up and become sticky in the rain. Alas, I had to head into the call room still slipping about with nerves quickly rising. I managed to dry some of the water off my gloves and rims and get the glue to slightly improve, however, I was still slipping off the first few pushes as I practiced before we went out to the start line. Speaking of start lines, I had Beat Bösch next to me which did make me chuckle thinking about the crash in Rio 2016. Anyway, a few deep breaths to calm the nerves, the starting gun went and I gave it everything I had. Somewhat frustratingly, what I had was another 4th place finish. I’m kind of glad the camera was focused on first place cause I quite audibly swore as I crossed the line (Sorry, mum!) realising I came in fourth again!
All the Thoughts and Feels
So were the Games a success? Honestly… I’m not sure I can say. My initial response is No, because on paper I finished the same place I did five flipping years ago, on paper my times over the last couple of years should have seen me more competitive. However, I gave it everything I had. I know the rain plays into some athletes' favour more than mine, I managed a faster time in the rain than in the dry in Rio and I finished in front of the gold medallist from Rio. It still hurts thinking about it, it's tough to swallow but gosh darn it if it doesn't make me determined as heck to hit the track and train even harder to better myself.
So what’s next for this fourth place dominating Australian Quad? Well, with the Games being postponed a year it means the schedule for the next three years is jam packed with, a World Championships next year in Kobe 2022, Paris in 2023 and then an absolutely hectic 2024 rolling into the Paris Paralympic Games! But these are all, of course, long term goals. Short term, the goal will be to gain some new qualifying times for selection (local competitions starts back in January) and work towards cracking the 17 second barrier dropping into the 16’s for the first time in my 100m career. Like starting all my past seasons, small steps towards the big picture. Rest assure, It’s more vivid than ever.
