GB Team Blog

Geoff Smedley – Kayaking Head Coach says:

See our Shanghai Blog on http://4asclub.org/ShanghaNews.aspx

These are genuine items culled from restaurant menus in Shanghai - although some of them read like crossword clues or coded messages to undercover operatives in Second World War Europe.

John Corley and Ruth Hartley - Sailing team

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The End

The Games are over, some of the team have left for home already. Signs are coming down and the last firework had hardly disappeared from the Shanghai sky before most of the SOI staff left en masse for Beijing.

There is no doubt that we have had a great Games. The atmosphere within the team has been fantastic and there have been some brilliant performances from the athletes and, it should not be forgotten, from the coaches as well.

Special mention should go to the badminton and male 5-a-side squads who performed really well but were unfortunate enough to often be often very badly divisioned.

The Shanghai skyline from the Wugong Hotel

We will all leave with some great memories of the competition, our team-mates and especially the patience and friendliness of the many, many volunteers who have helped us while we have been here.

We will also take home many interesting memories of this great city of contrasts – the bright lights and the poverty, the sheer madness of the traffic but where ‘road rage’ is hardly to be seen. Most especially in a town so busy that you think people would only have time for themselves the way Shanghai has embraced Special Olympics over the past two weeks has been unbelievable.

Our final Awards (Real ones first):
Warwickshire Disabled Sportsperson of the Year: GB kayaker Richard Wood
Best Crash of the Week in the Cycling Competition: Ronnie Hendrie
Most Accident Prone Coach: Robert McSherry (Powerlifting)
Quietest Squad of the Week: Bowling
Special Award for Irony: Swimmer Ryan Peterson getting sea-sick on a river boat trip
The United Nations Award for Diplomacy: Head of Delegation, Keith Wilcox
Most Appropriate Nickname of the Week: Simon Waggett (Powerlifting) who has asked to be known in future as ‘King Simon’
Most Inappropriate Nickname of the Week: Gold Head Coach Craig Martin who was christened ‘Shuai shangdi ow’ by the female volunteers at golf. It means ‘Handsome God’ apparently.

And finally a message from Keith Wilcox, Head of Delegation for Team GB:

“As we approach the final hours of our trip of a lifetime to China and the 12th Special Olympics World Summer Games, the GB team return home with a sack-full of medals, a truly memorable experience not only for the sports competition, but a fascinating insight into the Chinese way of life.

The team have been excellent ambassadors for their country and it’s been a great pleasure to lead the team and be part of a memorable adventure.

Also many thanks to the family members who have supported the team.

Well done Team GB.”

Day Fourteen

Well the Games are finally over. The Closing Ceremony last night was another spectacular show with plenty of colour, fireworks etc. Unfortunately we were not all seated together which means that the team will now not see each other again as a whole. Also where we were seating it was impossible to hear most of what was going on. Fortunately this didn’t really matter as everyone got down to the real business of swapping kit and seeing friends from other countries that they had made during the competition.

Our blog hasn’t contained much information about the sport on the basis you wouldn’t know where to start or want to leave anything out. We’ll break with this tradition to mention our last gold medal of the Games.

Our athletics competitors had a tough week. The competition didn’t start for a few days while the staging from the Opening Ceremony was removed. An already busy schedule was then made worse by losing a day due to rain meaning some very long days. On top of that what looked like good medal chances kept disappearing as other athletes suddenly improved their performances from the divisioning rounds and Steve Morris had to suffer the disappointment of losing a gold medal after a lifetime best in the long jump resulted in his being disqualified under the Special Olympics ‘Hones Effort’ rule.

The result was that going into the last event, the men’s 4 x 100m relay, GB only had two silver medals to show for all their efforts. Barry Ward, Steve Morris and Paul Chanaryn all put in good runs but in a tough division when Joe Strohm took over for the last leg, GB was in 6th place. As Joe produced a storming run it looked like we might snatch silver but in a really tight finish he managed to pip the team from Sweden on the line.

This was a great end to the Games and there was a nice symmetry to the fact that we won both our first and last medals in relays (it seems like a long time ago but the first was in swimming). It was also great that our men’s relay team was truly a GB one with two athletes from England and one each from Scotland and Wales.

Sandra O’Keefe (cycling), Lucy Pethig (tennis) and Bhikhu Patel (cycling) at the Closing Ceremony with the Games mascot whose name escapes me

There’s no space for any awards today but there will be more tomorrow in our final blog.

Day Thirteen

For most squads today was the last day of competition and brought another great medal haul. There have been some great performances by GB athletes, helped by some great coaching. This being Special Olympics there is no guarantee that a good performance will win you a gold medal but many of our athletes realise that to get a place award in a higher division is an achievement in itself.

We have undoubtedly lost something by not being altogether as a team for the period of the competition itself. When you know that a person or team has pulled off a great victory or suffered a defeat you really miss the opportunity to congratulate or sympathise with them in person. Even though I wasn’t there in person I did get the opportunity to get a sense of the tension of the 11-a-side Football team’s triumph over Russia on penalties because Keith Wilcox was good enough to phone me while it was on and give me a running commentary. I was in a taxi at the time and as I got more involved and vocal about what was going on the taxi driver clearly thought I was more than a little bit mad - which is saying something in Shanghai.

The sailing squad show of their collection of medals

I haven’t so far mentioned much about the volunteers at the Games. As you might expect in the world’s most populated country there have been literally thousands of them – mostly students it would seem and almost all incredibly friendly and helpful. We must give a special mention to our DALs. These are our Delegation Assistant Liaison (or something like that) and they are our ‘fixers’ communicating our needs and wishes and helping us to navigate through the labyrinth of committees and Chinese bureaucracy running the Games. Each squad has had it’s own DAL’s and while there were one or two who were more interested in fashion magazines than the achievements of our athletes most have been brilliant. Our two team DALs – James and Skye – have been really helpful. James started off being quite reserved and official but when you’re around 150 athletes for 18 hours a day it’s hard to stay that way for long and he has begun to mellow and was apparently joining in with all the chanting and singing at the football final.

Our farewell to our hotel and host committee with our DALs James (L) and Skye (centre)

We just have a couple of sports that are still to finish – athletics and badminton and the Closing Ceremony tomorrow night.

Today’s Awards:

Late Entry to the Worst Attempt at Growing Facial Hair: Ray Stead (sailing)

Team GB Worst Passport Photo: This was a very difficult choice as there were many, many contenders but the winner is… Ray Stead (sailing)

Day Twelve

As we move towards the last day of competition tomorrow the GB medal count is soaring – as it always does once gymnastics and Powerlifting start. The result is that we now have big powerlifters and small gymnasts wandering round with chest-fulls of medals. (The medals, by the way, are very big and very heavy). In some ways it seems unfair that one athlete can compete all week for one chance of winning something while others have as many as seven goes. At least this is something that is not unique to Special Olympics as the same applies at the Olympics or Paralympics.

What is different about Special Olympics is that your chance of winning a medal can be largely a matter of luck depending on whether you happen to be placed as the fastest/furthest/best within one division or the slowest/shortest/worst in the next. What this does mean is that there have been some great performances by GB athletes this week that will only have got them a place award which is why our coaches always try to emphasise that achieving your potential in terms of personal performance rather than final place is what counts.

Chris Mills (Kayaking) demonstrating fine chopstick technique.

Great hosts as the Chinese have been it’s fair to say by now that many of us are missing some things from home – including families, pets and british cooking. The food here has generally been of a good standard and we have been provided with a few western dishes but the menus have not varied greatly and so not many of us will be rushing to the local Chinese takeaway.

Although these Games have not involved the very long days of some past events we are also getting pretty tired now.

Laura Jervis and Sarah Paschoud try to contain their excitement just before doing a BBC Radio interview As we get towards the end of the Games time to start some Team GB Blog Awards (some serious, some not so):

Unluckiest Athlete of the Games: Gymnast Harry Smale who was ill on the day of his finals and couldn’t compete.
Worst Attempt at Growing Facial Hair During the Games: Steve Wray (aquatics coach).
Sexist Comment of the Week: The coach (who had better remain nameless) who got a beautifully washed and ironed shirt back from the laundry, wrapped in cellopane and with cardboard in the collar and who says he is going to take it back home to his wife so that she can see how it should be done.

Day Eleven

The big news for today was that we were all about to be swept away by a typhoon.  In the event this passed some way to the south of us and all we got was a day’s heavy rain.  This did cause all the outdoor events except football to be cancelled which means that we are in for a hectic couple of days in athletics and one or two others.

Donald Murray & Andrea Sellens
Donald Murray celebrates his gold medal in judo with team-mate Andrea Sellens

Most of the venues here are fantastic and usually purpose built for the sport.  The Games have really worked hard to make sure there is lots of signage and there are flags, banner and posters everywhere.  The footballers are being housed in a brand new facility which will be used as a specialist hospital for people with a learning disability after we have left which even has Games manhole covers!  The officials are generally of a very high standard (including a few who have been invited from Great Britain.   As an added bonus the Games are bussing in crowds of local people or schoolchildren who are lending a great atmosphere to each venue.  All in all the Chinese seem to have been determined to organise the competitions to a really high standard and they’ve generally succeeded fabulously.

The only things that have marred some sports so far are the cheating I talked about yesterday and that some of our teams (particularly the male 5-a-side footballers and the badminton players have been put into divisions with teams that are far above them in terms of ability.  It’s a shame that this is a problem that seems to crop up at every Games and would be solved if Special Olympics insisted on a proper amount of time being spent on assessing teams during the divisioning process.

Emma Jones and Jeffrey Jarvis
Emma Jones and Jeffrey Jarvis discuss tactics on their way to a gold medal in the table tennis mixed doubles

Having said all that most of our athletes have been treated very fairly and are getting the rewards for all the training put in back at home with their local coaches.

Day Eight, Nine and Ten

Sorry for not having blogged for a couple of days but the weekend was very busy as most sports started their divisioning or finals programmes.

Divisioning can be a frustrating time for coaches. In GB we have always made it almost a point of honour that we tell our athletes to give 100% in divisioning. Sadly there is plenty of evidence here that not all programmes do this and get their athletes to hold back in the hope of getting into an easier final. We do take comfort in the fact that some will get caught out through the Special Olympics ‘Honest Effort’ rule and that every GB award at these Games will have been honestly won.

Speaking of which it was great to get our first medals early on in the Games because it gives the whole team such a great lift. Our silver medal in the women’s 4x50m relay was followed the next day by Ryan Peterson’s gold in 50m freestyle.

Ryan Peterson celebrates his gold medal with Head Coach for Aquatics, Linda Shaw

We are now truly in the bubble that is a big Special Olympics event. This is where you have almost no news about the outside world, or at least no time to find it; where you make almost no decisions as what time you get up, what you will wear, eat, leave and come back are all mapped out for you; and where you have long periods of fairly tedious sitting around punctuated by moments of high excitement.

Swimmer Sarah Paschoud with her mum and dad.

As the competition has started we have begun to have more contact with all the parents and supporters from GB who have made the journey to watch us at the Games. We have more than 200 family members out here and it means a great deal to the athletes to know that they have this support. It’s great to see the flags and GB family shirts when you go into a venue. They may be well outnumbered by the Chinese spectators but they’re a vocal minority and it’s good to see them getting to know and supporting each other.

Day Seven

For many squads this was the first day of competition after settling into their new accommodation. The teams who have moved out of the Wugong hotel to stay nearer their sport venue have mostly very positive reports about their new accommodation and food. For some this is perhaps just as well because most are now hardly allowed out on their own and in one case are locked into their accommodation block at 10.00pm. One head coach described it as like being in a 5 Star prison. This is all a real shame because one of the great things about any international Special Olympics competition is getting to mix with and know athletes from other countries and some squads are now hardly getting any opportunity to do this.

GB 11-a-side Football team waiting to play their first match in the divisioning rounds

Since we got here the weather has always been at least warm and humid but it got considerably hotter yesterday to the extent that at cycling our team’s bicycle pumps melted! If the weather continues like this we are concerned about de-hydration – particularly for those competing outdoors.

The whole team were really chuffed to have won our first medal of the Games. It’s particularly nice that it came in a relay as it’s always particularly nice to see a group of athletes who didn’t know each other before they were chosen for the Games come together and pull out a great performance.

Birthday boy Thomas Styles

Tennis athlete Tom Styles celebrated his 20th birthday yesterday and the volunteers laid on a party for Tom and all the other athletes who have a birthday during the Games which was really lovely of them. Tom was particularly touched and said it was something that he’ll never forget.

Day Six

After the excitement of the Opening Ceremony we have had a quieter day today which gives us more of a chance to say something about Shanghai itself. It’s a huge place with a population of 19 million people – many of whom seem to live in the many apartment complexes that are spread across the City itself.

In many ways it is ultra-modern with cranes perched on top of the latest skyscraper being built and LCD advertising screens on the side of phone boxes. But right next to the neon signs and trendy stores are ramshackle streets where buildings are repaired using bamboo scaffolding and there are small shops selling everything imaginable and quite a few unimaginable things as well. Your confusion is made worse because English translations are sometimes approximate at best. We saw somewhere advertising ‘Foot Sticking’ the other day and it took us ages to work out that they probably meant acupuncture!

L-R: Head Coach for male 5-a-side Football, Mark Summers; Team Doctor, Sue Halliday and Sailing Coach, Ray Stead

The general hustle and bustle is more extreme at the moment as 1st October was China’s National Day which signals the start of a week long public holiday. This brings hundreds of thousands of Chinese tourists to the City making the already busy streets even busier. The traffic can only be described as completely mad. It’s not that the cars drive fast – there are just too many of them for that. But there are thousands of people on bicycles and scooters who just ignore every road sign and marking including pedestrian crossings and one-way streets.

Clearly amid all this, each area has a real sense of community – something that we were privileged to be part of for a few days during Host Town.

For the team today has been a strange one as half the team has now moved out to its competition accommodation. While it’s a shame that the whole team cannot stay together the sheer size and busyness of the City make this impossible as some squads would otherwise have a four hour round trip each day. Unfortunately it does mean that we will not now all be together until the Closing Ceremony.

GB Cyclist Bhikhu Patel contemplates defection to the team from SO India.

While some of the squads have a day or so more of practice, for most the Games really start in earnest with the beginning of their divisioning events tomorrow and the first medals of the Games will be won in aquatics.

Day Five

Another hectic day for the team. In the morning we said farewell to our Host Town in Huangpu with a banquet in our hotel.

Chinese banquets are social affairs as dishes appear at regular intervals so if you don’t like the look of the first thing that comes don’t worry because something else will come along in a minute.

There is always a wide variety of entertainment during the banquets and all provided by residents of the district.

We must all say a huge thank-you to the communities of Nanjing Road East and the Bund who have been wonderful hosts and who have welcomed us into their communities and given us a chance to see a side of Chinese life and culture that we could never otherwise have glimpsed.

With scarcely a pause we were then off to the Opening Ceremony at the Shanghai Stadium. This is a magnificent arena seating 70,000 and which was completely full. The Ceremony itself was a simply incredible. Interestingly a number of the coaches who have been at several World Games thought it lacked something in passion but it was as a spectacle that would have graced next year’s Olympics in Beijing.

None of the athletes had a bad word to say about it and various highlights included the dancing, the fireworks and the stars who appeared including Jackie Chan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Colin Farrell (described by one athlete as ‘bloody gorgeous’).

A slight disappointment was that we only go to march round a short section of the stadium and unfortunately we were almost as far away as we could be from the contingent of British families and supporters but at least we did manage to see some of them on our way out.

The Ceremony finished right on time at 10.00pm and we were back at our hotel by 11.20 which must be some sort of record for the fastest exit from an Opening Ceremony of all time.

We are now looking forward to the start of the competition which for most squads is in two day’s time.

Days Three and Four

Only a few days in Shanghai and we are already on ‘Games Time’ where you forget what day it is and what you are doing next.

This is mainly because our Host Town has been so welcoming and have arranged such a varied programme to keep us entertained while we are here.

We are being hosted by two communities in the Huangpu District in central Shanghai – Nanjing Road East and the Bund. We have been really lucky to be placed in one of the most interesting and historic areas of the City. The Bund borders the river and has many old buildings while Nanjing Road includes some of Shanghai’s busiest shopping areas – something that we have been taking full advantage of.

Welcome Ceremony in the Bund Community

There have been many, many interesting aspects of the Host Town programme because this is a fascinating area. In the evening we had a visit to a circus which was an incredible show with amazing feats of tumbling etc. with a finale of no less than three motorbikes being ridden inside a spherical cage. However some of the longest memories will come from the volunteers and local people we have met. Yesterday we were split into small groups and each was taken to lunch in the apartment of a local family. Everyone came back with stories of great hospitality and having eaten things that they would never normally have tried but really enjoyed.

Assistant Head of Delegation Jane Moncrieff and Table Tennis athlete Emma Jones learn how to make Chinese dumplings at a host family

Last night we had a reception on the roof of a building overlooking the river which had fantastic views. The team had already received a letter of support from Prime Minister Gordon Brown and it was great the Minister for Disability was at the reception to wish us good luck.

The team is tired but there is a great atmosphere developing as the squads get to know each other better. With 211 people all in the same kit there is bound to be some confusion which perhaps explains how John Corley (5’ 8” sailing coach and large everywhere) and John Hollingsworth (sailing athlete and only 5’0” came to be walking into the SOGB reception wearing each others tracksuit bottoms).

Everyone’s now beginning to get excited as the Opening Ceremony approaches and we look forward to the competition starting after that.

Days One and Two

We and, just as importantly, all our luggage arrived safely in Shanghai on Thursday having been taken very good care of by Virgin. The send-off at Heathrow was great for the team who were very touched that Lawrie McMenemy and David James came to see them off.

First priority was to settle in and catch up on some sleep, but it wasn’t long before we were out exploring the (very) bright lights of Shanghai and trying to get used to the hot and humid weather.

Yesterday was our first Host Town activity when we were taken to the Yu Garden – one of the oldest places in Shanghai. If it weren’t for all the tourists and 200 Team GB members it would be an oasis of tranquillity in the middle of this mad city.

Wendy Beech, Emma Jones, Jeffrey Jarvis and Kimberley Gillilan from the Table Tennis squad

One of the most noticeable things about Shanghai is that the World Games are everywhere. There are banners and posters at the side of the road and hanging from almost every lamppost and posters in shops and businesses – many of who seem to be sponsoring the Games. There is even a Special Olympics tourist train!

Last night we had the welcome dinner from the two communities in Huangpu district that are hosting us – Nanjing Road and the Bund. The team were delighted when Head of Delegation Keith Wilcox read out a letter of support from Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The dinner involved many courses and a variety of entertainment. This included a band playing traditional Chinese music all of whom were quite advanced in years. Towards the end quite a few of the athletes got on stage with them and were clapping along and cheering every song. This was obviously a new experience for the band but they clearly really enjoyed the atmosphere as it was probably the closest they will ever get to feeling like they are in Take That.

Susie Williams (Rhythmic Gymnastics) getting a lesson in Chinese music

Tomorrow the Host Town programme starts in earnest and so we are looking forward to seeing more of the city and its people.