Rik Waddon's Beijing Diary

 

Story posted Sepetmber 4, 2008

A diary from Paralympian Rik Waddon who, along with the rest of the British team is in China for the Paralympic Games.

 

The village people…
Well it’s arrived, and we are all settling nicely into the village life with the rest of the village people.  For me and a few of the other riders, it’s our first time at the Paralympics so the feeling of being in a village like environment is a little strange. Just the shear scale of the amount of athletes wondering around at  different times of the day is a little mind blowing…
 
Myself and a few of the other riders enjoying our evening meal in the massive dinner hall…

 

It is day 5 now and we have done two track sessions plus a couple of road rides out on the road and time trial course. The velodrome is amazing, probably a little smaller than I imagined it to be, well, from what I saw of the Olympic footage on the telly, but then everything seems bigger on telly.

 

The weather has been cracking the flagstone, with the temperature getting well up into the 30’s. I think we are averaging around 28 at the track with the air conditioning on which should make the racing really fast.

 
Some of the core staff taking a well earned break… oh, and photo shy Jon Heathcote

 

With 5 days left until the racing starts, everyone looks and feels great and just can’t wait to get racing, after all, that’s what we are here for…

 

To be continued…