SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – The Paralympics will be held in the same facilities as the Olympics. Here are some coments from USA swimmer, Karen Norris, who trains with the Bruin Masters Swim Club in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
Hello mates!
\n I'm here safe and sound, after a very long day of
\ntravelling. The flight was full, not an empty seat in
\nsight. We had three movies (I watched none), two
\nmeals, and one snack. Still, it took forever and a day
\nto get here. Thankfully my seatmates were skinny women
\nwho were very pleasant. Interestingly enough, both
\nwere Americans married to Aussie men. One couple lived
\nin the US, the other in Oz. Got some tips on places to
\nsee in my later adventures.
\n Happily being a Paralympian has its advantages. We
\nbreezed through customs in a matter of minutes. Our
\nluggage had already been pulled off and was waiting
\nfor us. However, it took several passes through x-rays
\nand dogs, several changes of buses, and checkpoints
\nbefore we were finally delivered to the Paralympic
\nVillage. We were set down in front of our homes, where
\nwe sat waiting for keys.
\n The houses are extremely spartan. I'm not even in a
\nhouse. I'm trailer trash. Trailers have been put in
\nthe backyards of the houses. I'm sharing a room with
\nthe only other married female swimmer. We shared a
\nroom at the Olympic Training Center at a camp earlier
\nthis year, so we know that things will be just fine
\nfor the next 3 weeks. There is only one small dresser
\nand one small armoire with a bit of hangar space and 2
\nmore small drawers. We definitely do not have enough
\nspace.
\n We were immediately shipped off to "processing".
\nThis is a warehouse outside of the Village. The USOC
\nruns the shop. We were given voicemail boxes, answered
\nmedical questions, got our tickets to give to friends
\nand family, had our photos snapped for media purposes
\n(just lovely after not having washed my hair for 40
\nhours and not sleeping either), and given our uniforms
\n– decent, but not exciting. We don't have our
\ncompetition suits yet. It'll be interesting to see
\nwhat kind of suit we'll get. Speedo is supposed to
\nprovide us the same deck warm-ups that the Olympians
\nhad. Finally, after 3 1\/2 hours at "processing", we
\nhad to rush back to our rooms and go to workout.
\n We swam at the pool in which water polo was
\ncontested. It's about 20 minutes away by bus in Ryde. It's a decent pool, but the locker rooms are lousy. There's only one close to the pool. The fun pool has been drained (that's no fun!), so it's only the 50m, the steam room, the sauna, and the jacuzzis.
\n This morning's workout (Fri am) was in the
\ncompetition pool. The pool is a beaut! Light green
\ntiles, pretty green lane lines in the outer lanes,
\nthen red and blue for the inner. The complex has been
\ndivided by temporary walls for the Games, but there is
\nalso a water slide, a wave pool, and another 50m pool.
\nThere are palm trees around the "fun" pools, making
\nthe complex look quite nice.
\n We're supposed to share the pool with Sweden and
\nThailand, but so far they haven't shown. So we've had
\nthe pools to ourselves. Yeah!
\n So far, I feel pretty well adjusted. I'm a bit
\ndraggy, but I don't think that the jet-lag was as bad
\nas I thought it would be. I'm really looking forward
\nto tonight's sleep. It poured rain today. The night
\ntemp's drop fairly low, so that the wool comforter is
\nnot quite sufficient. Tonight I'll add another blanket
\nand hopefully that will help. Of course, the fact that
\nI'm in a trailer with no insulation doesn't help.
\n The info that Ron is waiting to hear is about the
\nfood. The cafeteria is immense. It is in a temporary
\nbuilding, but it is quite comfortable. Not all the
\ndelegations have arrived in the village yet, so I
\ndon't know how crowded it will be, but right now,
\nthere's not too much of a line for the food.
\n As to the quality of the food, it is infinitely
\nbetter than Atlanta's food. It is on par with
\nBarcelona. There is plenty of fresh fruit and bread. I
\neven had steamed broccoli for lunch yesterday \ud83d\ude42 !! I
\nhad to wait til dinner for my steamed carrots. This
\nmorning after workout I had my standard breakfast of
\noatmeal (call it porridge here, mate!). So my tummy is
\nhappy at this time. I'll let you know how things
\nprogress as the Village gets more crowded.
\n Nothing really exciting to report (yet). I'd really
\nlike to take a look at the psych sheets, but they
\nwon't be ready until Monday.
\n I'm looking forward to going into Sydney, but who
\nknows when that will happen. I've had no free time.
\nIt's rush here, rush there. We've got the flag-raising
\nscheduled for Sunday. Opening ceremonies are a few
\ndays after that. I won't have to attend prelims on
\ndays I'm not competing, so I'll have a little time to
\nmyself then.
\n On the whole, I'm very impressed with the operation
\nhere. The buses are a bit crowded and the Village is a
\nbit spaced out (lots of walking with hills), but we've
\nhad no problems getting to the pools, and that's the
\nimportant thing.<\/p>\n
Thanks for your support. It makes me feel very good to
\nknow that I have so many people behind me.<\/p>\n
I'm off to dinner.<\/p>\n
Til later…
\n-Karen<\/p>\n
Sites covering the Paralympics:<\/p>\n
www.paralympic.org
\nwww.sportsillustrated.cnn.com\/paralympics\/
\nwww.wemedia.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – The Paralympics will be held in the same facilities as the Olympics. Here are some coments from USA swimmer, Karen Norris, who trains with the Bruin Masters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[44,105,51,7840,1751,7845,7838,7839,4334,500,87,45,5618,238,7841,62,7842,7843,7844],"class_list":["post-1859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-zzzzzzzzz","tag-atlanta","tag-australia","tag-barcelona","tag-bruin-masters-swim-club-in-los-angeles","tag-food","tag-karen-norris","tag-media-purposes","tag-olympic-training-center","tag-paralympic","tag-sweden","tag-swimmer","tag-sydney","tag-thailand","tag-the-olympics","tag-the-paralympic","tag-united-states","tag-www-paralympic-org","tag-www-sportsillustrated-cnn-comparalympics","tag-www-wemedia-com"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n