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Saturday August 15 |
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We
slept like a rock last night in spite of Courtney’s cell phone going off at
4:00 in the morning. It was only 7:00 Friday evening at home and
someone was calling him about a prospective job. He let it go to his
voice mail. We don’t know how much a call costs from here, but we were
interested to see that we do have coverage. Needless to say, he has
turned off the ringer now. We
got up at 6:00 and I finished my journal entry from yesterday before going to
breakfast at 8:00. We were informed by Jeff, the team captain, that we
were all to wear red USA shirts today. Breakfast was good. Peach
juice, sausage, hard boiled egg and some good rye toast. We
headed out to the field around 9:00 for some morning practice. We ran
into a gentleman from Italy named Marco who used to be the International
Blind Sports Association (IBSA) archery coordinator. We brainstormed
with him about how to get more visually impaired people involved in archery
and talked about the difficulties with getting visually impaired archery into
the Paralympic Games. Although it is great news that Sri Lanca is now
doing it, Marco said there are other factors fighting it such as compound
shooters wanting more classifications. He thinks they make take our
spots away if we don’t have more archers participating. Anyway, that
was a good dialog. So
far we haven’t seen the team from Sri Lanca. Apparently they were
having trouble with funding and may not show. I hope that isn’t the
case. We
met the visually impaired archer from Italy, Massi miliano, and his coaches,
Pierre and Carla. None of them speak much English, so communication was
difficult. I wish I had asked Nani and Grandma Gioia to teach us
Italian when we were young. Practice
was okay, but I am still very fatigued from the trip over, so I think I will
do better tomorrow. I started feeling a little better this afternoon
around quitting time which was close to 4:00. Courtney said that was
probably because it was really 7:00 in the morning and I was just waking
up. I think jet lag has a lot to do with it. Plenty of time to
adjust before competition though. We
talked to a coach from Malaysia who was interested in visually impaired
archery. Courtney explained to him how it works while I shot. He
seemed very interested in trying to get it started there. I have him my
card and told him to check out my web site for more information. That is
one of the best things about shooting here, the exposure to all the different
countries. According the information sheet they passed out, there are
about 300 archers here from 35 countries. We
went for lunch at 12:00. Had chicken and rice and a good chocolaty
dessert. It’s interesting that the meals are cafeteria style, and you
can only choose one item. What I mean is, they had chicken and pork and
Courtney wanted some of each, but they said he could only have one.
It’s not buffet where you can take what you want. They don’t encourage
seconds either. Very frugal. The
weather is beautiful. It is probably in the low 80’s. There is
lots of shade on the shooting fields. In the morning we shoot in the
shade, but it moves back in the afternoon. The trees make a great wind
break which is great for shooting, not so great for heat if it gets
hotter. They
provide us with bottled water, but it is mineral water which has an
interesting taste. Paul, the Belgian coach, says it’s a lot like sparkling
water without the sparkle. It doesn’t have a bad after taste. If
I could just avoid it going over my tongue when I drink it, I could avoid the
majority of the sharp taste. I did think I was getting used to it by
this afternoon. We
are now relaxing before we meet for dinner at 6:30. AFTER
DINNER: Dinner
was good. Pot roast type of meat over pasta noodles. You have probably
noticed by now that they like their starches. Every meal has noodles,
corn and potatoes. There isn’t much in the way of vegetables or
fruit. My diet is shot, but that’s the way it goes. They did have
fried broccoli which wasn’t very good. Too mushy and not crispy.
As you would expect, the drinks are all room temp. We were very happy
to find an ice cream machine. We
just got back from our team meeting. Tomorrow we will not be practicing
in the morning so we can go to breakfast when we want. We will meet for
lunch at 12:30 and then go to the opening ceremonies. We are to wear
khaki pants and our white USA shirts with our names on them. After the
opening ceremonies we will go to the field to practice and for equipment
inspection. They call each nation team one by one for inspection.
We will be one of the last. In
order to use the internet, we have to pay by the hour. Paralympics has
offered to pay for 1 hour each day for those of us who would like internet
access. More
tomorrow.
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