Special Olympics Jamaica arrive in Austria for World Winter Games

BY SANJAY MYERS @ Special Olympics Winter Games in Austria

TULLN, Austria — The Special Olympics Jamaica (SOJ) floor hockey team had its first training session yesterday afternoon after arriving in Austria in the wee hours of this morning for the 2017 World Winter Games.

Glendon West, the head of delegation, said the players showed no sign of jetlag during the fairly intense workout of approximately an hour at a gymnasium located about 10 minutes’ walk from the Jamaicans’ hotel base in Tulln.

“That went well because we got a chance to work on the kind of surface that we’ll be playing on. The guys looked very sharp although we travelled for several hours and then went into the training in the afternoon. But they didn’t show any ill effects from the long travel,” he said, referring to the almost all-day travel from Jamaica.

“The speed at which the [floor hockey] puck will travel is important because it’s much faster than the one we practise on back home. We worked on team play because we have to fine-tune the different combinations that we want on the court at any one time,” he explained.

The Jamaicans, who will be based in Graz when competitive action starts at the Games, are also down to compete in speed skating. The opening ceremony is scheduled to be held in Schladming on Saturday. Graz will stage the closing ceremony on March 25.

The unusual high temperature in Tulln — albeit it being toward the back end of the Winter season — prevented the speed skaters from practising.

Conditions yesterday hovered around 10 degrees Celsius with plenty of sunshine in the afternoon.

“We didn’t get any training in for the speed skaters because the weather conditions here is not as cold as usual so the rink didn’t have any ice. We know that when we go to Graz [for the start of the Games] there’ll be opportunities for training,” West told the Jamaica Observer.

Jamaica won silver medals in two ice figure skating categories and earned a second-place finish in the top floor hockey category at the 2013 Games in the Republic of Korea.

Meanwhile, West told the Observer that he is pleased so far with the warm reception by the host town programme in Tulln.

Yesterday evening, the Jamaicans, along with the delegations from Kosovo and Bahrain were invited to dinner by Tulln Mayor Peter Eisenschenk and organisers from the Rotary Club in Tulln.

“The welcome started from the airport in Vienna and we had the drive into our host city. We had a reception dinner with the mayor and the Rotary Club, our hosts. It was really a warm welcome and it was good that we shared the evening with Bahrain and Kosovo,” said the SOJ head of delegation.

“Things are slow now so we get time to rest and to acclimatise. The town is very wonderful, there’s so much history and the Donau river runs right behind the town — this big river that runs through Germany and through Austria as well. We have some more sightseeing on Wednesday,” West continued.

The Special Olympics movement aims to break down barriers that exclude people with the intellectual disabilities from mainstream society.

Close to 3,000 athletes from countries around the world are expected to feature in Austria in various disciplines including skiing, skating, snowboarding, snowshoeing and floor hockey.