GOLD !

What a difference a round, heavy shiny object makes to elevate 350 people's morale.
Last night the men's basketball team were solidly defeated by Spain. Everyone went to bed in a glum state. Tonight, after the evening's haul, there's energy in the Red and White zone.

You will see different medal counts here compared to Olympic games. The main reason is the classification system for equal, or as close as possible, sports competition. Every sport is different. Basketball classifies regarding a player's physical and functional ability and they get a score from 1.0 to 4.5. The total score of the 5 players on the court can not be above 14. It provides various line ups and player selection with different skills. The coach has to be aware of this the whole time as a mistake becomes a technical foul. In sports like swimming, it gets real interesting. There are 10 physical classes (S1-S10), 3 visual classes (S11-S13) and a new cognitive class (S14). SO at the Olympics, there is one "50m, men freestyle" event with 3 medals to be won. At the Paralympics, there could be a "50m freestyle S1...S2...S3...S4..." (you get the picture?) event with 3 medals each. So if all classifications are full and have enough competitors you could hand out 42 medals for "50m men freestyle" event. Fortunately, there are many classes where there are not enough competitors internationally to hold that event and not all of them are held. You could be an elite swimmer, classed an S4 and not be able to compete because there are not enough people in that class. That's good in a way because the full pool schedule would never end. Remember there are butterfly, backstroke, medleys, 100m,....events in multiple classes with male and female division. This is why, as I write this at the end of day 2, China leads the medal count with 49!. There's been a lot of swimming, shooting, track cycling and track and field medals today. China is strong in many of those.

Getting back to medals!

This morning we had 3 cyclists in 3 different classes, C1,2 and 3, competing on the track in the 3000m individual pursuit. The 4 best times would advance and compete for medals early in the evening. Basically, the 2 best times go for gold/silver and the 3rd and 4th race for bronze. Ross Wilson in the C1 and Tristan Chernove in the C2 finished with the second time so in the evening, they were getting either gold or silver. Michael Sametz, a 20 year old rider classed C3 came up with a great ride and was going for bronze in the evening.

This Spanish rider rides with only his right leg and has only his right arm to handle the bike. These games have endless athletes who impress me and should impress everyone

Ross clocking in the second best time in his group

Tristan coming in second in qualifying

Ross was facing a tough match against a Chinese athlete who is not only the World Champion in this discipline but broke his own world record in qualifying! His evening ride would see the Chinese rider lap him and effectively the race is stopped with an instant win. Tristan had a tight race but his last laps were slowing down with his opponent keeping up the pace so although he started ahead in pacing, he won silver. Michael did not succeed and lost the race for bronze.

Then we had Brent Lakatos blow by everyone on his way to a Gold medal in the 100m T53 classification.

Aurélie Rivard, a swimmer in the S10 class, came up with a world record in the S10 women 100m freestyle! She beat Brent become Canada's first gold medal. She isn't sone and we are expecting a lot more!

By the way, explaining all the different classifications of cycling and track and field is too long, dry and complex for this blog.You can find all of that at https://www.paralympic.org/classification-of-sports.

I then ran to cover the men's goalball team. Goalball is a sport for visually impaired athletes. Here are the brief notes to explain the sport. 2 teams of 3 players face each other on a court about the size of a volleyball court. they defend large nets which are as wide as the court is. They need to have a documented visual impairment, cover their eyes with taped patches and wear blackout goggles. This makes sure they are completely in the dark. The court has raised lines so they know where they are. The ball is bigger than a basketball and made of heavier rubber. It has a tiny bell in it. When it is launched , they listen to the sound of the ball and the bell to figure out where it goes and launch themselves horizontally to stop it. Then they laugh it back. The whole arena or venue has to be quit for the players to hear the ball/bell. The only venue where sports are not "cheered" unless there's a goal.
It is certainly not intuitive and not as easy as it looks. The men played Brazil....they lost. The crowd was hard to quiet down. They are an emotional people the Cariocas!

All he above pics are my attempt at sports photography. A hobby I practice at these games. Every year I feel technology is running away from me as the pros have fancier equipment, better and bigger lenses, much better positions and great after production on photoshop. I shoot what you see. I'm proud of my pics but when I stand beside the pros and see what pops up on the website the next day, I bow my head.
Please, please, please go to https://www.facebook.com/CDNParalympics/photos_stream and see some great pics of our Canadian athletes!

Here are a few: