Over the winter I have taken on 2 Special Olympics Athletes into my training group. It has been a very interesting experience and I believe it’s worth a blog post.

When I was the Head Coach for the 2017 Games we also had 4 Special Olympics athletes as part of our team. I made a big effort to have the Special Olympics Coach involved in all of our team decision and also have athletes compete at our Provincial Able-bodied meets. This work paid off and the Special Olympics athletes won 3 medals out of our overall 9 medal haul at the Games. Never before have any NS Special Olympics Athletes won a medal in Track and Field.

After the season was over I stayed in contact with the Special Olympics Coach and he asked me to take on the 2 top athletes to supplement the SO training. At first, I was not fully sure of how it would work out and how I would manage to integrate the athletes. My initial thought was that I would have separate practice with the SO and the Para Athletes. But after doing 2 practices with the SO athletes I quickly realized that it will be beneficial for both groups to train together.

It is me believe that although the 2 groups are doing different forms of locomotion (running versus wheeling) they can still benefit from each other and push each other’s to better performances. I was able to film some video where the group where training segregated and another video where the group where training integrated. My initial observation from those 2 videos was that there was much more laughter and interaction between the athletes and my self’s. It seems to me that having the SO athletes in practice was increasing our “fun factor” and made my athletes a bit more relaxed.

On the other hand, I have seen a tremendous performance improvement in both SO athletes and they really started to understand what a high-performance practice entails and how hard they need to train in order to get to the best they can be. The male athlete in particular was already very driven when he started working with me and he just needed some guidance in his training program.

I came across a very interesting article on the effects of integrating athletes with intellectual disabilities that confirmed my observation of increased performance for SO athletes when integrated into an able body program. The interesting part to me is though that the study also looked at perceived competence of the SO athletes and there was a significant decrease in perceived self-competence due to the more realistic outlook on their performance.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/46297190/Effects_of_integrated_or_segregated_spor20160606-16041-1krzjmt.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1523541911&Signature=HibVyRTo4q5mT8KjMEKkkNbId9I%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DEffects_of_integrated_or_segregated_spor.pdf

Since 2016 the Paralympics have a T20 class which is for athletes with an intellectual disability and it opens up new possibilities for Para Coaches. Although it might be a bit scary for a coach at first, I truly believe that integration of athletes with a disability can enrich a training environment and be beneficial for both the SO athletes and the Para athletes and as well able-bodied athletes.

I’m writing this blog from our Training Camp in Warm Springs Georgia. This is the 5th time we are coming to Warm Springs before Christmas and it has become a tradition every year. We are using this time to get an intense training block in before we head into a recovery week over Christmas.

Warm Springs is a small town about 1.5 hours south of Atlanta. The Rosevelt Centre was the staging camp for the 1996 Paralympic Games and all the Facilities are fully accessible. Every year we book a Camp Lodge that has 12 individual Rooms which lead to a Common Room with a Fire Place and TV.

The internet is slow but that is okay and forces us to stay offline more often and talk to each other. We generally train twice a day and take a little trip to Atlanta halfway through the camp. We have 3 meals a day that are catered to us and we provide the cater company with a meal plan that was developed by our nutritionist at the Sport Centre.

It’s at those meals were we often sit and chat not just wheelchair racing but many other aspects in life. It’s were people open up about family and friends and experiences they had in the past.

Having the opportunity to be with the athletes for an extended time gives me a real good chance to develop deeper relationships and getting to know the athletes better. I have one on one meetings and we spend hours planning the season and brainstorming ideas for workouts and equipment changes.

Every year I invite other athletes from Canada and different countries. In the past we had athlete form Switzerland, Nigeria and Great Britain. This year we have a visiting Athlete from the USA and her coach. The athlete and her coach are fairly new to the sport and they get to learn a lot at our camp.

I truly enjoy sharing our training plans and experience with those athletes and coaches and through dialog there are always new things that challenge my views on training and coaching and often I learn things that I would of not learned if it was just our group at the camp.

Once we return to Canada we have a deeper bond due to all the experiences we went through and often this carries momentum through the winter preparation months which can be very hard on all of us but knowing the athletes and their personalities helps me better understand on how to keep them motivated and be understanding of the challenges they might face.

Hi Everybody,

Below you can find some videos that I posted earlier in the year featuring some of the athletes I coach and some of the interaction I have with them. Being a Para Athletics Coach I often find my self explaining to people what my athletes do and how the sport works since there is still less awareness for Paralympic Sports compared to the Olympic Sports.
I’m often told that it must be very rewarding and inspiring to work with Para Athletes. My reply is that it really is no different to coaching able bodied athletes and sometimes might even be less rewarding since people still question the High Performance site of the Paralympics.
I tread every athletes that I work with as a High Performance Athlete. I demand full dedication in and out of practice and the primary goal for my group is to make the national team and eventually win medals at international competitions.
I see my self as a high performance coach coaching high performance athletes and I feel that the culture within our team reflects this wherever we go. It took us 8 years to build a group of 8 High Performance Para Athletes based out of the Sport Centre Atlantic.
Over the last 8 years we recruited over 100 athletes but only 8 of them made the cut to be on the team and stuck with the training regime. I only had to literally cut one athlete from the team and everybody else quickly realized if they were willing to make the commitment and sacrifices that I asked from them.
It usually takes about 3 months of training for an athlete to either stay with the program or move on to another sport or activity.
My athletes know I demand a lot from them and I think they all truly appreciate that.