Proven results

With just over a month to go until the 2010 Special Olympics Summer Games begin in London, Ont., local athletes are working harder than ever to prepare themselves for medal runs.

The nine-member provincial athletics team, which consists of four Gander Wings Special Olympic athletes, was in Gander over the weekend going through vigorous testing. Dr. Carmel Casey, head coach of the provincial track team, said one of the things coaches looked for during the testing was whether or not the athletes were sticking with the contracts they signed when they made the provincial team.

"Athletes on the provincial team have to sign a contract to be part of that team, and become part of the provincial training program. That requires them to train three days a week, and has to include cardio, weight training and core conditioning," said Casey. "We did fitness testing because the people who were named to the team in September were tested at that time, and now we can see how that training has gone. There were a lot of improvements."

The two-day training camp began on Saturday with fitness testing at Gander Collegiate. On Sunday, the athletes went to the 9 Wing Gander base gym to work specifically on track and field in regards to starts, shot putt, long jump, and since they will take part in relays in London, they had to work on baton passing. Heather Paul, a local psychologist, did some mental training and sport psychology work with the athletes.

"We had a chance (Saturday night) to look at fitness testing results, and we have the results from September so we could compare, and a lot of our athletes had improved their results significantly...they doubled and tripled what they were able to do in September," said Casey. "Fitness testing is a fairly broad spectrum, so we do things like the beep test to look at their cardio, push ups, balance testing and stretching, so it's a very all-encompassing assessment. The athletes have been holding to their contracts to train, and it shows the great work our training coaches, who work with these athletes three times a week, have been doing."

Although a huge aspect of Special Olympics is having fun, Casey said a lot of hard work goes into getting the athletes ready for competitions. She said Special Olympics is a sports organization, and they work on enhancing the lives of individuals with intellectual disabilities through sport, fitness and through being part of a team through setting and achieving goals.

"There is a lot of social stuff that goes with Special Olympics, but we are a sports organization, and we take our sports seriously, as evidenced by the provincial board of directors going out to fundraise to make sure we can have a provincial team program, so we can do a big training camp together, so we can go to the provincial training centre in St. John's to get our athletes assessed, and so our coaches can get advice on training, and to bring us together for sport specific camps," she said. "We take our sports seriously and our athletes benefit from sports as well, but the social part is there and we always remember to have fun."

When the nine-member athletics team hits the track for competition next month, Casey said the goal will be simple - achieve personal best results. Although that will be easier said than done, as the nation's best will also be vying for similar results, Casey has total confidence the local group will reach that goal.

"We would like to see everybody do their personal best, and I think that's what we're going to see. When we go to compete in London, I think we're going to see them vastly improve their previous personal bests," she said. "Whether that translates to medals or not is going to be a different story because we're going to be on the national stage. We do hope our athletes will bring back some medals, and we certainly anticipate they will, but it's going to be a lot more challenging for them to do that. Just the honour of representing your province on a national stage is just tremendous."

Home-cooked success

Johnny Philpott, Mike Austin, Michael Harris and Floressa Harris are the four members of the Gander Special Olympics club. Rounding out the rest of the squad are Happy Valley-Goose Bay athletes Matthew Russell and Ada Sheppard, Chris Dugas of Stephenville, Katie Lydiate of Mount Pearl, and Crystal Young of Carbonear.

Having four members on the team is a huge accomplishment, as 90 athletes competed for a roster spot.

"Almost half the team is from the local club, and we're quite proud of that," said Casey. "Ninety athletes competed for the nine spots on the team, and we had 12 local athletes, and four made it. I think it speaks of the work being done in the Special Olympics program in Gander over the last five or six years, and the volunteers we've had come out to help with athletics. Gander has become a bit of a powerhouse in athletics in Special Olympics."

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