I can’t believe tomorrow we will attend the opening ceremony! Time has really gone by pretty fast since we got here.

I had the same boring schedule every day with getting up at 6:45 grabbing some breakfast and taking the 45minute drive to the cycling venue. Doing 50 - 60km on it, heading back for lunch, getting a massage, having a nap, going for a jog in my wheelchair, getting some dinner and a few good laughs with some of the team member and going to bed.

Live is good in the village but the stress levels are starting to kick in. People are getting more edgy and irritable and sometimes their sense of humor has gone missing, but this is the big league, you don’t get any bigger than this and you’d better be ready for it.

I ran onto one of my biggest competitors on the course today and he seemed pretty upbeat! 7 Days before we race and the mental games have already begun. More like mental warfare! I’m guilty myself, spotting some of my competitors from behind and blasting past them like they are busy parking! My latest one is to jump in behind some of the regular cyclists like the Tandems or single leg amps and going really fast with them and you know somehow the news that you are ‘flying’ with reach your target in that team..all games!

Last night we had the ambassador’s reception at a very posh hotel. Speeches were made and dinner was served. One remark I found very interesting is that South Africa will take a medal count for Beijing 2008 on the 17th of September 2008. And the success of team SA will be measure with the total count of the medal(s) for the Olympics and Paralympics combined. Somehow in the back of my mind I can’t help but wonder if we will receive the same financial reward as our sole Olympic silver medallist got?..I think not.

Two day’s ago I ventured out to the notorious ‘Silk market’. What an experience but one I won’t repeat soon. Basically it’s ‘knock-off’ city with multiple levels like a department store and everything you buy is either a good fake or a very bad fake. You can bargain and bring the price down to around 10% of the price you start off with. The problem is that once they have you in their little cubicle they won’t let go off you until you buy something. I quickly learned the best way to approach this is not to make any eye contact until you see something you really want to buy!

So we’ve all heard about the negative media back home that came from an interview with one individual and it came across like the individual was speaking on behalf of the entire team. I’ll give a few lines of my own feelings and impressions:

Yes, things have not been perfect but do we really live in a perfect world? We did receive most of our kit in a timely fashion but some items of competition clothing were not appropriate for the conditions or events and those were ordered just as we left home. They have arrived and were distributed amongst the track and field athletes. One however has to realize and except that we are dealing with a multi-sport event and competition clothing for every event has become a very specialized affair. I hope the lesson learned through this has been that from a high performance point of we view SASCOC will have to in future assign and employ a team of highly experienced and motivated people to work on this to ensure that for the next round we have a much better scientific approach to competition kit. We have research institutions in South Africa with highly skilled and experienced people and I’m sure that if the budget is made available they can serve as consultants and work closely with the athletes to make sure the needs of every individual and sport is met.

As for our dress for the opening ceremony:  the athletes took a vote and we will wear our formal wear to the opening ceremony. We will look respectable but we are going to be so hot! A fair compromise, maybe. Lesson learned; we have some of the best designers in the world and perhaps in future we should tap into that resource so we as athletes can be comfortable to the conditions but still proud of we are wearing and the country we representing.

Some other things were complained about but I think they might have just been an emotional response when the ‘last piece of straw’ broke the horses back’. Things are well in Team SA. We are living very comfortable and when possible most of our needs are met.  Some have it easy, as their venues are fairly close, some of us have to commute for more than an hour every day to get to training. When there was not ‘official’ transport, it was made available to us my management. Things will not always be perfect but after talking to some of the other teams I’ve learned we are not alone. The athletes who will win medals and perform are those who have mastered the concept of ‘change’ the best. The only constant we have in this world is that we will have to be able to continuously adapt to our environment and circumstances. At the level were we are it should be second nature.