Image Description: A paralympic pool with lanes. One lane divider is blue with orange ends and another is yellow with orange ends. There is a yellow diving board in the foreground of the image with the number 6 on it and handles.
Watching the Paralympics on television only gave you a glimpse into what went on from August 24 – September 5 in Tokyo, Japan; there was so much more that went on behind the scenes. The viewers at home never got to hear about the food quality in the dining hall, all of the COVID protocols, and how the athletes prepared before their events. I chatted with four Paralympic swimmers, Sabrina Duchesne of Canada, Americans, Mikaela Jenkins and Ahalya Lettenberger, and Tully Kearney of Great Britain to give you the inside scoop. All of these athletes are incredibly talented with Sabrina winning a bronze medal in the 4x100m freestyle relay, Mikaela winning two gold medals in the 4x100m freestyle and 100m S10 butterfly, Tully winning a gold medal in the 100m S5 freestyle and silver in the 200m S5 freestyle, and Ahalya winning silver in the 200m S7 Individual Medley. This is the first article of a two-part series, focusing on the athletes during the Paralympics and around the Athlete’s Village.
Sabrina:
Mikaela:
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Tully:
Ahalya:
The Athlete’s Village at the Paralympic hosts two dining halls – a casual dining area with fresh Japanese meals which can serve up to 3,000 meals a day, and the main dining hall which offers up to 45,000 meals a day of nutritious, global cuisines to feed the athletes.
Question: How would you rate the food on a scale of 1 to 10?
Sabrina: 6 – it was good, but the only thing was that it was really repetitive and always the same thing every day. There was a lot of choice but I didn’t personally like everything so it was hard to get a variety of what I liked.
Mikaela: 7 – Because for as many athletes as they had to feed, the food wasn’t too bad.
Tully: 8 overall – There were so many options which was great as I have food intolerances, so there were many things I could eat! But I think it depends on what you’re eating, since it’s a 24 hour food hall so if you go when it’s not busy, the food has been sitting out for a while and isn’t as fresh.
Ahalya: 8 – Considering everything, it was really good.
Question: What was your favourite food offered in the dining halls?
Sabrina: The ramen and fruit, I think that everyone had a fruit bowl at every meal.
(Author’s Note: The fruit included freshly cut berries, and melons)
Mikaela: The sticky rice was bomb and there were also chocolate muffins that were really good!
Tully: After I’d finished competing, the staff members told me that the pizza was great, so I tried a slice and it was really good. I think my favourite overall was the salad bar, it had a fruit bar so we had fresh cut fruit every day which was probably my favourite.
Ahalya: I am gluten free and the gluten free bread was so good! Also the fresh cut fruit – especially the watermelon was great!
Hosting the Paralympics during COVID-19 was a challenge for Japan, with 4,403 athletes competing, it was the highest number of athletes at a Paralympics. A plethora of safety measures were implemented so that the athletes wouldn’t spread COVID-19.
Question: How safe did you feel in the Village and at events?
Sabrina: I didn’t feel any danger, the measures were great. Wearing masks outside everywhere in the village (masks were only off in rooms and to eat) was not fun, but it was safer that way.
Mikaela: I felt really safe, every precaution was taken, and everyone was tested for COVID every day. If you tested positive you had to be quarantined immediately. I didn’t know anyone who tested positive. At the dining hall we had to put hand sanitizer on, wash our hands, put on gloves and walk to food.
Tully: That was one thing I was worried about, as an athlete who was shielding at the start of the pandemic, due to being classed as clinically extremely vulnerable, but I did feel really safe. I was happy with all the rules and that we did have to wear masks all of the time. At the start and middle of the Games, everyone was following it perfectly, but near the end, some countries did start to become a little complacent and it wasn’t always being picked up on, I think the volunteers were being strict at venues but not in the general Village.
Question: Did you feel like you missed out on some of the Paralympic experience because of COVID?
Sabrina: Compared to Rio, the racing was the same. It was the village that was different and exchanges between athletes were harder.
Mikaela: Yeah definitely, I heard a lot about past Games from other veterans and these Games went really smoothly compared to some of the experiences in Rio. Obviously we didn’t have fans and every session would’ve had 15,000 fans in the stands so it would have been [intense].
Tully: I think we missed out on not having spectators in that pool. It was [unique] because the ceiling over the pool was slightly lowered and the lights were super bright, so it was like we were under a spotlight. Obviously it’s the biggest pool I’ve been to, with the amount of spectator seating, so I think that would’ve been an amazing atmosphere with all of the stands filled.
Ahalya: Having spectators there and having family there would have made the experience a lot better. I also really wanted to be able to explore Japan because I don’t know when I’ll get to be there again but we unfortunately didn’t have that opportunity.
Question: What else was going on behind the scenes to protect you from COVID?
Sabrina: We had to do a spit test every morning to give to the team manager, and each athlete had a file to fill out with their symptoms and temperature every day.
Mikaela: There were cleaning crews constantly coming around and spraying things down.
Tully: We could only take our masks off in our room with the door closed and we had a COVID test everyday, it had to be done by 8 a.m. so even if you weren’t racing, you had to be up early.
Ahalya: Everybody had to be masked all the time except for when they were eating, and then in the dining hall when you had to be unmasked there were plexiglass shields between everybody.
While the Paralympic athletes use the same Village and facilities as the Olympic athletes, accessibility is a priority because all of the athletes are disabled. With different levels of disability, each athlete has individual needs and had unique experiences with the amount of accommodations available.
Question: Were the accommodations accessible?
Sabrina: Yes, for myself because I can walk, it was a lot easier and faster for me to get around than athletes who used a wheelchair. There were lots of ramps and fast elevators. Also, I would say that it was easier and faster for me to get around because people in wheelchairs had big lines to wait in to get on the buses.
Mikaela: Everything was pretty accessible. I know that some of the blind athletes had a bit of a tough time getting their whereabouts at first though. (Writer’s Note: accommodations for blind athletes at the Paralympics include screen readers, live audio description services, braille, and tactile indicators)
Tully: Generally, it was really good. Having so many wheelchair users in one building was difficult with the lifts as sometimes you had to wait a long time, but the overall accessibility was great.
Ahalya: I found everything to be really accessible, there really weren’t any specific issues that I had.
Question: What were some of the struggles for you in terms of accessibility?
Mikaela: There was a lot of walking; probably around four miles of walking a day. As an amputee I wasn’t prepared for that, because as an able-bodied person if you walk one mile, a bilateral amputee will walk five in terms of exertion, so that’s definitely difficult if you haven’t prepared for that.
Tully: Because of a last minute room change, I was put in a different flat than I was supposed to be in and my room was much smaller. So because of the turning circle for my wheelchair, it was really hard for me to get out. Especially if I was up earlier than the rest of the flat, I was banging things and waking up the rest of the flat, it was really difficult to turn around in my room.
Question: What accommodations could be made so that it would be more accessible?
Mikaela: Not to be biased, but putting the USA building right by the busses would’ve been wonderful! But honestly, it wasn’t too bad and nothing I couldn’t handle
Tully: Everything was accessible, but for example, the path to go through the Village had our flats at one end, and the shops, transport and dining hall were at the other end. And if there were loads of people on one side and you wanted to cross to the other side, there were only drop curbs at the very start and the very end. The path was the same level as the road but they put concrete barriers between the path and the road so if you were a wheelchair user you couldn’t get across. So if they fixed that it would have been more accessible.
Within Team Canada, USA and Great Britain, each of the athletes had unique interactions between their swim teams, country, and other delegations.
Question: How did the camaraderie within your own country’s team feel?
Sabrina: Within Team Canada’s swim team we were very close since we knew each other from previous teams and competitions. For people who were new on the team, we had a training camp in Vancouver before flying to Tokyo where we got to know everyone better. Between all of the other Canadian athletes it was harder because there wasn’t much time to get to know each other, but we did have a backyard ceremony in the Village for all the Canadians.
Mikaela: WIthin Team USA itself, you’re obviously there to swim for yourself, but you’re also there to represent your country and do the best you can for them and to support your teammates so camaraderie was strong, especially because we had less of a chance to talk to people from other countries.
Tully: At other competitions, meals and transportation are done together with Team Great Britain, but in Tokyo we had to be more self-sufficient due to being in small bubbles to keep everyone safe, so I didn’t see much of the team other than my own flat. We kept connected through WhatsApp groups. Prior to arriving in Tokyo, we were at a holding camp in Suzuka which we had visited previously for a simulation camp at the end of 2019. This visit was quite different due to social distancing, but the staff had prepared us for the fact that we would be spending a lot of time alone when we weren’t training. We could not even eat together, so Tokyo was a bit more open than that.
Ahalya: It felt really good, COVID definitely impacted it, because people were more weary of who they were hanging out with, but overall our team leaders helped to unify the team. We had a week of training camp at the US Air Force base in Yokota before we actually went to Tokyo so being there helped to build the bonds between us. The last time I was in an Athlete’s Village was at the 2015 Parapan-American Games in Toronto. All of Team USA was in one building so I got to see athletes from other sports all of the time and talk to them.
Question: Many athletes trade pins or other kit items with other countries as memorabilia to take home, did you do any trading?
Mikaela: Personally I feel like Team USA has the best team kits so I heard that all the other countries would try to get our gear! I didn’t realize how true that was until I got there and a lot of countries were coming up to us. Our gear was a hot ticket item! I let people come up to me and I kept my pins on my credentials so I would just take them off and trade them.
Tully: Only with 2-3 other athletes because I thought I had an extra six days in Tokyo than I actually did. I raced with an injury so for 4-5 days after my race I was feeling horrendous. I planned on trading at the end but then we got sent home early because Paralympics GB wanted to ensure that athletes didn’t get exposed and then have to isolate in Tokyo, so I couldn’t.
Ahalya: At the pool I had a friend from Switzerland who has the same disability as me so we traded shirts! I wish I did more pin trading but I kept forgetting my pins. But I did a little bit and I got a really cool one from the Netherlands.
Before the athletes walk onto the competition pool deck, they stay in a holding room known as the call room as volunteers perform the last checks of their suits, cap and goggles.
Question: What was the energy like in the call room?
Sabrina: There was a really big silence, and everyone was doing their own thing; either listening to music or doing activation stretches to warm up.
Tully: I wasn’t really paying attention, I have my own pre-race routine so I just blocked out everyone else
Ahalya: That was the scariest part for me, they say that races are won or lost in the call room and you feel that. The call room is the most nervous I’ve ever been.
Question: How did you calm your nerves before your race(s)?
Sabrina: I don’t like to hear anything so I listen to music, especially my playlist with a lot of Eminem.
Mikaela: I’m a big proponent of listening to music especially in higher intensity situations. I have a really weird mix of music that pumps me up but the last song I would listen to before walking out would be Original Spin by Mother Mother.
Tully: The main thing that I use is music as soon as I get out of the warmup pool. Depending on the mood I’m in, I have different songs to calm me down or to rile me up. The last song I listen to has the beat at the same speed as I need to move my arms for the race.
Ahalya: For me, I try to keep my mind off of the race and try to have fun, so I listen to music and dance. I probably look [out of place] compared to the other people who are just sitting there focusing; but listening to music really helps. I’m a huge BTS fan so I listen to all of BTS before I go out.
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Now you have the inside scoop on the Athlete’s Village during the Paralympics, be sure to check out part two of this series to read about the medals that each of the athlete’s took home, tidbits from athletes about what doesn’t usually get covered in the media, and how the path to the Games can be made more accessible for anyone wanting to get involved in para-sport.
