Mon June 30-Sunday July 6thThis has been a busy week for me! Filming with the SBS, meeting my sponsors Thinking ergonomix, a swim team camp and a swimming race!
SBS Television Show InsightOn monday I flew down to Sydney as a guest of the SBS, as a guest of their televised debate program Insight.
The topic was "Going to China" what awaits our athletes at the upcoming controversial Beijing Games. It was all very exciting.Other guests included everyone from Former Olympic athlete Nova Peris to Budhist monks and there was a lot of stimulating discussion. Although the show wasnt filmed live, it was recorded pretty much as it would go to air. We even stopped for 'ad breaks' when the crew told us all to cough and fidget before filming started again!
I had a pretty good idea what jenny would ask me, as the lovely producer Christine had called me about 5 times in the week leading up to the program to go over fine details. We were being particularly cautious as I didnt want to jeopardise my place on the team for Beijing by saying something too controversial. Overall I think I answered the questions ok and even managed to mention to humanitarian crisis in Darfur, which is something I am passionate about. I have joined team Darfur,an international coalition of athletes seeking to raise awareness about the situation in Darfur.
I was thrilled to meet Olympic swimmer Michelle Engelsman, and to share a taxi back to my hotel with Nova Perris Kneebaone (one of my childhood heroes) after the shoot. The SBS kindly provided cab charge vouchers to make my way to the studio at Artamon and from the airport to the hotel.
After the show I wrote a blog for the SBS website which you can visit at:
http://news.sbs.com.au/insight/getting_political_hurts_athletes39_performance_550765I finaly got back to the hotel about 10pm and still had to order dinner from roomservice (rissotto) and prepare for the next days activities.It was freezing in Sydney, and even with the heater on and my warmest Pyjamas it was hard to get warm and sleep. I was so tired, and thought I just needed sleep but it turned out to be the beginnings of the flu and a respiratory tract infection that would bother me all week. Talk about bad timing!
You can read the transcript of the program, or watch it online at
http://news.sbs.com.au/insight/going_to_china_550418For me the trip brought back fond memories of my time travelling overseas, as I flew to Sydney by myself with the 3 bags of swimming gear and neat clothes (for the tv filming- being a typical girl I couldnt decide what to wear and packed about 5 options!).I then had to cart it around by myslef (I felt like a pack horse!).
Meeting my Sponsor: Thinking ErgonomixTuesday I spent with my sponsor Dean Kusch and the staff of thinking Ergonomix, in Sydney. Thinking Ergonomix is an ergonomic furniture company based in Sydney who have been kind enough to support my Beijing campaign by funding my training expenses. A HUGE thank you to Thinking Ergonomix!
Dean collected me from my hotel and we spent a lovely day at their factory. I even got to make a fashion statement in a spunky fluro yellow safety vest for a tour of the factory. Then we all got together for a lunch, where I shared my story with everyone and showed a powerpoint presentation with photos of my swimming career. What a wonderful bunch of people. And I am so excited to have a sponsor for the first time in my career.
After that it was back to the hotel so I could head out for a jog as my training session for the day. I got hopelessly lost and after trying to catch a monorail to central station found myself wandering lost around a shopping lamm on busy Pitt Street. Gosh there are a lot of people in Sydney compared to Maroohydore.
I just got back to my room intime to watch myself on TV when insight went to air. Then I sent a whole lot of emails to people I met on the show and wrote my blog for the SBS website while eating my roomservice dinner (rissotto again- why is there only ever one vegetarian option!)
Then it was time to pack and get some sleep before the swim camp tomorrow!
Paralympic Swim team Camp and Grand Prix 2 ( which is a swim race not a car race mum!)From wednesday to Sunday the entire swim team of athletes and support staff got together at Rydges parramatta for our final camp and competition before Beijing.
The day we arrived, head coach BK pulled me aside to say he had watched me training and was really happy with my progress which was great to hear!
It was an exciting but busy few days, which included a great team building activity called Artrageous. We broke into six groups to paint canvass artworks depicting one of our team qualities. Our group had 'motivation' and we painted a giant chinese lucky coin to show we will work so hard and be so motivated that we won't need luck. We decorated it with our own handprints, which was a silly idea as I then had to get someone to push me to the sink so I didnt get black paint all over my wheels. Our 'artworks' (if you could call them that) will travel with us to Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.
Another thing we had to do was fill out forms for the drug testing authorities saying where we will be EVERY DAY from now until the Games. Quite a challenge when I have such a busy and varied schedule.
It was such a cold week that by the time the competition started I was feeling worse for wear with a cough, blocked nose, sore throut and difficulty breathing. Our legendary team Doc Lary put me on antibiotics to stop it developing into a chest infection. But as they say, the show must go on so I still had to race. I did my best in the races but didnt do very good times, which was disappointing. Though I really didnt feel well.We were racing the Olympians so I got knocked out in the heats on the first night, and spent the rest of the competition doing training sessions in the warm up pool.
I even got to meet Olympian Emily Seebhoms parents when I went to collect some POOS tshirts for my mum. The paralympians families have been invited to join POOS (Parents of our swimmers) which is a way for Olympians and paralympians families to get to know one athother. As everyone else was swimming I volunteered to take all the paralympians tshirts (probably not the best idea for someone in a wheelchair... I had to balance them all on my lap and the pile was so tall i couldnt see where I was going!).
After our final team meeting before we depart for our pregames camp in Kuala Lumpur it was hugs all round as we said to eachother excitedly "See you in Malaysia!"
With that we headed to the hotel for lunch, packed our bags in the buses and headed for the airport and bed...... where I spent the next week trying to recover from being sick. So frustrating,everytime I tried to train I was short of breath and had to take it easy. The joys of training in winter!
