Down...Up....down again

Paralympic Park at night.

We started day 5 of the Games yesterday and I am officially losing my handle on these blogs. There are so many things going on every hour rather I feel my blog should be basically sharing everything I keep getting on Facebook form athletes, CPC, IPC....

Yesterday was a big day as the women WCBB team met the Germans. They are a solid team and winning would put the Canadians at the sole position at the top of their pool. As they were meeting Brazil today, a sure win unless they played REALLY bad, they would be undefeated. The next step being the crossover at 1/4 finals would have them meet the other pool's 4th team. GB, who we beat already, had beat the Germans. So this means they can be beat. The Canadians actually beat them to win the World Championships in 2014 in Toronto. Unfortunately, although they led at the half, they couldn't keep the focus and let the Germans sneak away with a win. 

That's the "down" in the title. 

This is where things got weird. There are 3 teams in "first place" as us, Germany and GB have 1 loss. Today's game against Brazil confirmed that standing as we all won our last game. So Germany becomes first due to a points system which leaves GB and us to sort out. Since we beat them, then we get second place. We will therefore play the 3rd team in the other pool: China. We could beat them. 

Cindy Ouellet

Waiting for the bus

This is the "up" in the title.

All of a sudden, the rule makers came to our coaches and said:"Sorry we misinterpreted the rules, you get 3rd place". I'm not even going to attempt to explain how this happens because it appears ....nobody really understands it. So we get only one loss and we end up in third behind a team we beat....

That means we face the Dutch team who finished second in the other pool. They are a very strong team. We did beat them in 2014 as well but the Canadians aren't playing as well as they did then. It is a long 2 years ago and the Dutch seem to just execute like machines. 

That's the second "down" in the title.

The USA are even more methodical. They are the team to beat. Fast, precise, fit. We met them last year in the gold medal game of the Parapan Am games in Toronto and they won. 

So now the women will try and focus all their energy to tomorrow's game. We had a very good game against Brazil with the starting line up getting a rest in the second half allowing the bench players to get some competition court time. Nobody will be allowed to make mistakes and allow the Dutch any breathing room tomorrow.

The situation is not as pretty for the men's WCBB team. In 2000 and 2004 they were gold medallists at the Paralympics. In 2008, a crazy double overtime game against the USA had them win and finish so late at night they had not much left against Australia for the Gold the next morning. They won silver. In 2012, in London, they met Australia again for the Gold and there was no way they were losing that one. Did you know that since 2004, the men's team has lost only one game at the Paralympics? It was the 2008 final. After London, 4 world class veterans retired leaving the team to rebuild. They didn't even qualify for the World Championships in 2014! At these games they have not won a game yet and are meeting Turkey later today. The odds are for a Turkey win. It is not pretty and morale is quite low as one can imagine.

There are so many event's in the pool I can't  keep up. I am not close to the sport of swimming so am not paying close attention to all the different events happening. I know we have many Canadians in finals tonight. 

The cyclists are done on the track and have scooped 3 medals. Now they are training for the road time trial and the road race. Lucky them! They get to ride bikes in this beautiful weather. I sometimes wonder if I should have listened when one of their coaches was hinting I should get involved with the Para-cycling team after the London Games....Instead of hanging around cyclists and riding my bike, I spend my time in gyms. But I do like working with the WCBB team. I certainly can't do more.

National anthem before the Brazil game

This is the van we carry all the chairs in

about 15 chairs, puzzled in there with all the wheel bags. 

The puzzle happens every day

 Looks like tonight's practice is cancelled to allow the players to rest a little more, recover and get ready for tom,borrow. Big team meeting to review the game plan though. Everybody has to be dialled in for tomorrow. No exceptions. This situation happened in London as well. The players seemed to  get disconnected as the game against China progressed and they basically beat themselves and lost the chance to fight for the medal rounds and ended up in 5th. A very big disappointment they tried not to replicate here.With This 3rd place issue, it is more difficult to get to the final four.

So if there's no practice, I might stay and cover the clinic a little then find a place to go cheer Canadians. Since the Athletic stadium is too far, it might be the pool.

The Paralympic feed did;'t have anything early this morning. Just a live camera view of Copacabana  beach...or maybe it's Ipanema. I don't know sine I haven't been. Maybe this will be as close as I get to the beach.