Disability Sport Wales
Chwaraeon Anabledd Cymru

Blog 7 - Caroline Matthews The Long Road to Beijing

Its been an incredibly long and stressful time since I last wrote.

I’ve seen the “play-offs” – which are the highlight of the Wheelchair Basketball national league season and the completion of the superleague and women’s league seasons…my women’s league team, London Force, managed to secure the women’s league title for the 5th time in a row! GO FORCE!!!

The highlight of my domestic season this year, however, has been playing Super-League with Oldham Owls and the “legends of the game” which that team include – players like Richard Pullen, my GB coach Garry Peel and especially Dan Johnson (they will probably shout at me for this!) amongst others.

I have continued to train as hard as I possibly could but my training in the run-up to the Paralympic World Cup (“PWC”) in Manchester (at the beginning of May) was undoubtedly affected by outside pressures.

As with everything in life, there is a balance that must be struck and for me that involves juggling a full time job and trying to train like a professional athlete. There is a limit to how much you can do before your health starts to suffer and (unfortunately) in the run-up to Manchester I was forced to ease back on my training slightly.

I always look forward to the PWC – international games are always a thrill, but to play on “home turf” in front of a large, noisy and supportive home crowd always adds that something extra (I cant imagine how amazing the London 2012 Paralympics will be!)

Everyone in the squad was training as hard as they possibly could for the PWC – as we all knew that selection for Beijing was dependent upon a good performance at that tournament. And the Beijing selection was going to be announced on the Sunday after the tournament (before we all went home).

Once it had begun the PWC flew past (as tournaments always do) in a blur of matches, training, video-analysis and meetings. Our first match of the tournament was against Brazil and everyone was really looking forward to seeing what they could do – they are in the same pool at the GB women in Beijing and we have never seen them play before.

We went out to an early lead, from which the Brazilians could not recover and everyone was re-assured that, whilst won’t underestimate them, we should have a competitive match with Brazil in Beijing. They had one particularly strong shooting point guard – who will certainly be one to watch at the Paralympics. Later the same day we played China who had improved enormously since we last saw them, but we were still able to secure another confidence boosting win.

After such a successful first day, we went into the second day of competition in high spirits – to face the Netherlands women’s team. We have had a considerable number of training matches against the Dutch team already this year – and we had won more than we lost, so we were all hopeful of another win. Unfortunately the Dutch caught us off-guard as they seemed to find another gear that we had not seen before. They had obviously been doing their home-work on the video-analysis of our games, as they effectively shut down our main scoring options for the full 40 minutes. The whole squad was disappointed by this loss and it seemed to colour the mood in the camp ahead of the next game, where we stumbled in a re-match against China. The Chinese team pressed us for a full 40 minutes and we struggled to move the ball up-court. We had a long and emotional team meeting that night – which left everyone more determined than ever to come out strong in the 3rd/4th place match the next day against Brazil.

Just as we were about to go on court for our final match of the tournament, Garry Peel, our head coach, reminded us how it felt to win Bronze at the Europeans last year – and it fired everyone up to go out with high energy and determination. We started quickly and blew away the Brazilians to secure the bronze medal.

There were undoubtedly some nerves in the GB women’s camp over the course of the PWC week – which isn’t surprising given what was resting on it! But we learned a lot about how each other deals with stress and disappointment mid-tournament. I am sure every squad member will have taken away something that will help them in the throws of the Paralympics. Whatever happens you have to be able to re-focus and move onto the next game. Manchester served to highlight the areas where we still need to improve – both individually and as a team. There is certainly still a lot of work to be done!

Wearing a GB shirt is amazing, winning a bronze medal whilst wearing that shirt is incredible – but on this occasion, even tho the games were over, the highlight of the week was still to come….SELECTION!

Everyone in the squad went out for a meal together on the Saturday night (after watching the GB men win a silver medal in a nail biting final against the USA team) and then, on Sunday morning, we were called one by one into Garry’s room to be told whether we had been selected for the Beijing team…..

I could hardly believe my ears when Garry said to me “You’re in!”.

WOO HOO!!!! I’m going to the Beijing Paralympics!! And just writing that down has made me grin from ear to ear AGAIN!

Selection is always very stressful (for staff and players) and its so difficult to see the disappointment in the face of your friends and team-mates who have not been selected. But our squad is a very close knit unit and I am sure we will continue to support each other over the next few months – which are likely to be both tough and rewarding, emotionally and physically, for everyone.

Once the team had been selected, I was finally able to start making plans for the summer – until you know whether you are going or not, your entire life is on hold. So the process of finding accommodation and sorting out visa’s (for travel to Beijing) for all your family and friends begins – including getting the dog booked into kennels!

Every other weekend over the summer is now taken up with GB activities – which include, for the first time, a tournament in my home town…Cardiff!! We are playing the Dutch and the German teams in Cardiff on 3rd – 6th July – so please come along and support us all in our preparations for Beijing – you are sure to see some amazing world class wheelchair basketball.

At the moment, I have just got back (and am still suffering with jet-lag) from the first of this summers preparatory tournaments at the Roosevelt World Championships in Warm Springs, Georgia.

All of the top 8 womens wheelchair basketball teams were there – so it was an excellent measuring stick in our preparations for Beijing – and we had some very good performances. We came within 3 points of beating the Dutch and about 10 points of the Australians. We now have video footage of all the teams which we will be studying whilst continuing to develop and work on our own game. We didn’t win any games whilst at the Roosevelt tournament – but I don’t feel down hearted by that at all. We were much more competitive against the biggest and best teams in the world than we were last time we saw those teams (which was 4 years ago in Athens)…we have improved enormously and there is still time for more improvement in the run-up to Beijing and beyond. The GB women’s wheelchair basketball team is definitely rolling in the right direction!

My training (both individual and with the team) will continue to escalate over the summer – whilst I continue to balance it against the need to work full time…its going to be a tough few months – and I cant wait!!!!

I’m very lucky that Disability Sport Wales have now arranged for me to have the help of a Strength and Conditioning coach twice a week between now and Beijing – and Joe Hewitt has already made a huge difference to my training regime. Its so nice to be in the gym wth someone…its so desperately hard to keep training on your own – which is what I have always had to do. So I’d like to say a big THANK YOU to Disability Sport Wales and Joe (even though he has selfishly gone on holiday this week!!!)

See you in the gym!!!

42 DAYS UNTIL THE START OF BEIJING PARALYMPICS 2008

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