With regards to my cycling the month of January is used to prepare for South African Road Championships – one can say my most important race of the year. These Championships are where the South African team for the year is chosen. Not only do I have to train hard but also smartly so that I don’t have become too fatigued by the time that Champs arrive, but I also have to find a person to go with me, to book flights, transport, confirm accommodation, buy racing license and my annual membership, and so much else. It can be a crazy time. But this year the craziness got worse!
On the 21st January I received a very surprising watsapp message and then a follow up email that left me confused yet excited. The email was from the paracycling director asking me to submit a letter of motivation as to why I should be included in the SA Paralympic team and my cycling CV. I felt like I was in a dream. I was thrilled and wanted to get excited but this was too unreal. Why, you may ask?
For the sake of you, my reader, I am going to explain this section especially well because even some of my family and friends get confused when we discuss this topic, so bear with me. For as long as I had been competing in cycling people in the know had said to me that I wouldn’t be selected for the Paralympic Games because at the Games my class (the T1 Class) competes against a stronger class (the T2 Class) for the same set of medals and T1 riders are more disabled and thus slower than T2 athletes. During the Paralympic Time Trial a factor system (almost like a handicap used in golf, I think) is used to make it a more even race but the factor system is not used in the road race. Due to the fact that countries select participants for the Games on the basis on their medal prospects because of the financial burden to get the athlete ready and to the Games, I had been told several times during the last six years that I would not be chosen. I remember talking to my friend and cycling mentor, Carol Cooke, at the World Champs last year about my potential inclusion in the SA Paralympic team and later when I spoke to the SA director of Paracycling at the hotel later he told me again that even with the factor system and the possibility of ringfencing, I would not be chosen. (Very simply put, ringfencing is when a class is very small and the officials make a decision that if countries have riders in that class they have to include those riders or the country will forfeit those slots.)
So you can just imagine my surprise and even shock when I received the request for the documentation! As an athlete, the biggest sporting extravaganza one can compete in is the Olympics/Paralympics and it is most athletes dream, including mine from childhood. But after being told for so long that that dream wasn’t achievable I had readjusted my goals. Even in an Olympic year, or so it still was in January, my sights were firmly set on the World Cup in Italy at the end of May and the World Champs in Belgium at the beginning of June. Because of that I had even thought of doing a course from July to November and focusing on something other than my cycling while the big guns did the Paralympics. Suddenly I had a chance, and that was all I wanted at this stage! The program that they wanted to recommend me for was not the full OPEX programme but for the Special Support Program. The OPEX Special Support Program would not pay for my expenses on a monthly basis but would supply me with a certain amount of funds for my competitions till the end of June which would be the final stretch of the qualification process for the Games. I had three days to get my documentation to the director so I got even busier.
Knowing that there were even more eyes on me now and that I had a chance to not only qualify for the national team for the World Cup and World Champs but also for the Paralympics, SA champs took a whole new meaning. I had to throw everything I had and do my best.
Just a few days after I submitted my documents to the director and four days before I had to leave for SA Champs, my friend, Nerise, who was going to assist me at the competition, sent me a tearful message saying due to health issues she would no longer be able to assist me for the week! The feeling of devastation hit me. I needed someone to go with me who could assist me, drive a car, assemble and disassemble my trike, and do so much more. Moreover, my friend was already in the area so I was only in possession of one flight ticket. I hadn’t hired a car because we were going to use her car. With only a weekend and the Monday before I was due to leave I felt like my chances to go to any competitions for the year was disappearing!
Next blog: SA Champs – when the wheels come “loose” !
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