| Our Amazing Athletes Aim High in Ames! By: Nin El-Khoury and Kevin Lajeunesse The first ever Special Olympics National Games was held in Ames, Iowa, July 2 – 7. We were fortunate to witness first-hand some of the thrills of an incredible week of exciting competition and camaraderie of 3000 athletes representing all 50 states! With over 86 athletes, Team Florida was well represented! However, we are most proud of our own amazing athletes from Seminole County, Joanne Counelis, Mark Preston – Track and Field; George Gibson and Eric Taylor – Golf; And our swimmers, Aaron Hudson, Charbel El-khoury and Chris Friedman. Originally, we ventured to Iowa as volunteers for aquatics, it seems that Linda Waarum, the Head Coach for the Florida Aquatics Team had a different idea….we would for the week, find ourselves on the pool deck as assistant coaches! From the opening to the closing ceremonies, with the highs, and lows, fun and laughs in between this is our story of the week as seen through our eyes, not only as their assistant coaches, but as our Athlete’s biggest fans! Getting to Iowa State University was the biggest challenge that week! It all started in the Des Moines airport on Saturday. We rented a car and a lovely GPS system by the name of Lola. Well long story short, as Lola was directing us to Iowa State University, Kevin decided he did not want to follow her directions. That incident resulted in us making a HUGE circle around Iowa’s interstates. But no worries- the exciting corn fields that filled 99.9% of the land kept us from getting too bored. Once we arrived at Iowa State, we got lost for another 30 minutes trying to find our Volunteer Dorms. After receiving our room keys, we went up to the 2nd story of an old and humid building…opened the door…and….Lets just say I wish we never found our dorms. Our lovely cement block was furnished with two metal beds, a mirror and two gorgeous wooden dressers. The broken chunks of wood on the dresser doors really added a touch of elegance to our stay! Somehow we made it through the night with no air conditioning and communal bathrooms! The next day we joined Team Florida for breakfast to find out that some people did not make it through the night- and when I say people, I mean one person by the name of Charbel El-khoury, who decided at 2am that it was time to go outside of the dorms and have a drink of soda to “cool off” from the heat. Head Delegate Charolette Day heard the alarm and found Charbel, or Bubba, sitting outside on the steps nonchalantly enjoying his soda. That evening we attended the Opening Ceremonies. The ceremony began with Eunice Kennedy Shriver entering the Arena. The ceremonies were uplifting and exciting, especially as each states delegation proudly paraded in. The torch was than lit and Tim Shriver officially opened the inaugural 2006 National Games in Ames, Iowa. As Preliminary competitions began, head aquatics coach Linda Warrum realized she would not be able to coach, chaperone, and commit to her seven athletes all by herself! So Linda and Kevin approached the aquatics staff and relieved us of our volunteer services. From that point on, Kevin and Nin became Assistant Aquatics coaches. Being at the venue we met many outstanding athletes from across the US, learned many things about coaching aquatics, and strengthened our relationship with our own athletes. Swimmer Chris Freidman enjoy his 5 days of competition as he learned to dive off the blocks, reduce his swimming time by 20 seconds, and met many people from him home town of Philadelphia! Chris was awarded a GOLD in his 50yd Breaststroke with a final time of 1:21:30 and a BRONZE in the 50yd freestyle with a final time of 1:03:34. Most importantly Chris showed us all his responsible side, as he was lucky enough to room with the mischievous Bubba. Chris spent the whole week keeping and extra eye on Bubba and making sure he stayed out of trouble. Swimmer Charbel Bubba Elkhoury taught me (Nin) a lot during Nationals. Bubba had trained for months, like all of the other athletes, and the moment he saw the swimming pool in Iowa, he panicked and forgot everything he learned. All of the sudden Bubba was afraid to get into the pool or put his head in the water because he said the “water is chocking me”. At the beginning of the week Bubba asked me everyday, “when are we taking the plane back” and he had slowed his times down by 15 seconds- as well as performing illegal strokes because he was so scared of the water. It broke my heart to see him train so hard and not accomplish anything…but it turns out he did. When it came down to finals, we convinced Bubba to get back into the pool and he competed in the 50yd freestyle, bringing home the SILVER. Even though he did not use any technique, he managed to make his best time ever, 1:07:91. Finally, Bubba competed in the 50yd. butterfly and made it half way through with a perfect stroke, but on the last lap he began to “choke” on the water and got disqualified for doing an illegal stroke. After the competition Bubba was ecstatic because he knew he had tried his hardest to get over his fear of the “chocking water”. However, at that moment, I (Nin) fully comprehended the athlete’s oath, “Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.” I was very disappointed when Bubba didn’t race as fast and as good as I have seen him do before, but at the end of that week, I got the opportunity to watch Bubba overcome a huge obstacle/fear and he was truly BRAVE in his attempt! Aside from swimming, everyday, Bubba managed to give out a minimum of 10 kisses to Coach Linda and the innocent blond volunteers he thought were cute. And when I say kisses- they were quite forceful- just imagine Bubba walking straight up to a volunteer he doesn’t know, grabbing her head with both hands, and planting a big kiss on her cheek. He then throws them a cute but pimping smile and walks away proud and accomplished! Swimmer Aaron Hudson is quite the athlete. Aaron competed in the 50yd freestyle with ease and confidence. He won GOLD in this event by only a 1.5 second difference with a final time of 45:11. He also got GOLD in his 50yd Butterfly with a final time of 1:16:75. Then when Team Florida competed in the relay, Aaron picked up LOTS of lost time as he swam his laps in less than 42 seconds!! When Aaron was not winning gold medals, he was off giggling, smiling, teasing people, or getting into trouble with Bubba. During the last day of competition, Aaron and Bubba thought it would be funny to pile objects on us while we were sleeping, like keys and soda cans, and then they managed to take about 40 pictures of their sleeping artwork! To Kevin’s disappointment, Aaron was also a good tag football player with a bad sense of direction- as he scored lots of points for Nin’s team when he accidentally ran the wrong way. But when Kevin and Nin got into a water war, Aaron supported Kevin 100% of the way by becoming Kevin’s personal body guard- sacrificing the dryness of his body for his beloved Coach Kevin! Here is what Aaron had to say about his trip: “My trip was great!!! I had fun swimming. The closing ceremonies entertainment and fireworks were excellent! The true spirit of Special Olympics to me is, it's not all about the awards you get, it's about having fun with friends. I was proud of myself for doing my best. And that's all I want to say.” Unfortunately, we only got to see the swimmers first hand, but we did have our other National Athletes share some of their stories: Joanne Counelis: “My favorite part was the competition and winning the gold. I would like the opportunity to do it again. I would like to go to the world games. I also enjoyed walking in the opening ceremony...it was beautiful and the Olympic Village...dancing the most!” Joanne has already started training....walking a mile a day since coming back. Her results: 800 m walk - 1st place and 1500 m walk - 4th place Mark Preston: He said the competition was excellent and he enjoyed the dance and being with everyone. He also enjoyed karaoke and enjoyed seeing his mom. He liked hanging out at the Olympic village and his with roommate Louis. His results: 100 m dash - 5th Place and Long Jumps - DQ Eric Taylor: “My experience in Iowa was awesome. It was the most fun and enjoyable Special Olympics games I have ever been to. It was great. I mean in the spirit of competition there's a time for fun and a time work and as for my partner and I were concerned, we had a lot of work to do because of the difficulty of the Golf course that him and I had to play on that week. It was very hard, but we were able to cope with it and still able to bring home a third place medal. The most things that I like the best was the way they had all the Olympians staying at Iowa State University and all the volunteers and the school set up one great Olympic town for everyone that week. But in the end I will never forget the fun and most of all the smiles that was on everyone's faces that was able to be there to watch all the athletes form around the country come to together in such a awesome week long tournament. It was great. I really enjoyed myself.” Eric and his partner Charles brought home the BRONZE playing 18-holes. George Gibson: “I had a good time in Nationals because I go to do all the fun things that were there. I had fun golfing 9 holes with my partner Joanne. Golf is hard because you have to concentrate and make sure not to hit the ball in the woods.” George and his partner Joanne Jacobs got 5th Place. The night before we all had to leave, a majority of the athletes stayed up all night to party with us before they left. This party was really just a mission to keep all the kids awake until 2am when they had to leave to the airport for their 5am flight to Orlando. We got to see all the athletes inside and out and we know they are all very proud of themselves. We are all happy to be home and are keeping these wonderful memories close in our hearts. |