Juegos Parapanamericanos Mexico 2011

Performance at the Village!! Me encanta ese sombrero :)

After many months of preparation and hard work the big day arrived, time to fly out to Mexico and compete at the Para Pan-American Games in Guadalajara. It was not only exiting for me to be swimming at such competition but also great to visit Mexico again after 11 years. As I arrived at the airport, the music, the smell and the color started to bring some memories back. I was in Guadalajara a city of Mexico that I had not visited before but it defiantly had the essence of that rich culture that is found anywhere you go in the country. I was very happy while I was riding the noisy bus without A/C from the airport to the village, it was almost unbelievable for me to be there. Everything was new to me but still with the very familiar latin flavor. After arriving at the village and having a quick lunch it was time to raise the American flag and acknowledge the presence of the Team USA. Mexico prepared a welcoming event, full of colorful dresses and typical dances from Jalisco. The rooms were ready for us to occupy and the people were very hospitable. Right after that same day was our first time training and seeing the pool. It was great and the staff was welcoming and happy to have all of us there. The opening ceremony of the games was not until the third day and defiantly one of the best moments of this trip. As we were organizing the teams for the ceremony we were gathered in a private area for athletes only where they had a party or as they called it “La Fiesta de America”. I think that this was my favorite moment when I saw all the people regardless of country, language or culture dancing to the same rhythms all together. As we entered the stadium as a team I was very proud to be part of Team USA the country that is my home and has open so many great opportunities for me including this one as one of the bests. All week the village was a celebration for me. I was speaking Spanish and receiving the best complements on my ability to speak it so well while being from the USA. Towards the end they all found out where the Spanish with no accent came from. I guess is hard to hide a Cuban and I am always happy to show it off.

Performance at the Opening Ceremonies!!

At the pool life was very active; the stands were full with a very energetic crowd.At the level of the pool it was the space to make friends with people from other teams, we were located between the Argentinean and the Mexican teams, with whom we exchange pins and some funny moments. When looking to the stands from the pool deck we could see the Mexican flags covering the space but on the day of my competition this pattern was interrupted by my family that brought and American flag to support our team, which would stand out among the many Mexicans. It was overwhelming to presence this moment.   I was about to start racing and the stadium was euphoric and cheering for every single athlete. At the moment of the race it all came down to sticking to my strategy and staying as focused as possible, although after the previous description this defiantly became a challenge. My time on the 100BR was good I broke the Para-Pan-American record but Mexico decided not to Medal my class, the reasons are unknown by me. I am happy with my swim and I look forward to the upcoming competitions. The next one will be December 8^th , 2011, yes… I have to compete again!! This time in La Mirada, California where I hope to have part of my family coming to watch I look forward to it!!! 

Mariachis took over the pool!!!

Santa Barbara

View on the way back from the pool 

Unlike Canada I am always ready to go to California, sun, water and mountains, what else could I ask for? The OTC resident team was taken to Santa Barbara for a two weeks training camp. During training camps as well as  competitions we only get to know the trajectory between the pool and the hotel. It is very rare that we get to experience the cities we visit.  The Santa Barbara trip was a little different,  we were very lucky, the hotel and the pool were within walking distance, both facing the Pacific Ocean, cold, none the less beautiful. If you remember where I was born you can understand why I enjoyed this trip so much. I had the privilege of seeing the beach every day and every time I would come out of the pool or the hotel.  After practice, I would happily volunteer to not ride in the car and just enjoy the beautiful picturesque return from the pool to the hotel.  Every small hotel, people or cars parked along the street side were a constant reminder of the typical Californian life. The street contrasted perfectly with the hippies playing music, the surfers or even the creative homeless people begging for money by using famous phrases or games to interact with the people passing by.

One of the most interesting characters along that path was a guy that decided to cover his entire van with pins, stickers, flowers, signs or any object that was related to the hippie movement.  His decoration wrapped around the entire vehicle including the inside where he also manages to have a living space, with his a bed and a closet. What a great use of the space!!!

Van parked along the street

 Besides the swimming portion of this trip I had the great opportunity of seeing part of my family that came to visit me from Los Angeles and with them I visited a very picturesque Danish town called Solvang. I also visited two of the historic Missions of California, The Santa Barbara Mission and Santa Ines, Mission.

Santa Ines Mission 

You must be wondering with so much fun around me, if I truly swam during this time. Yes, I did!! I was very happy to go swimming every day. The workouts were very hard but a good challenge. One morning I almost left my breakfast in the pool due to the intensity of the workout. I had to swim 200m three times where I would have one arm doing free style and the other arm doing backstroke to make my body follow a spiral kind or rotation. All I can say is that the three palm trees on one side of the pool ended up doing the full rotation with me in my mind that did not know what right, left, up or down was.  

The Santa Barbara Swim Club was very welcoming and the pool was even a historic site of the city. The name was los Banos del Mar due to the historical baths located on this site. This trip was fun and defiantly had a lot of hard training. It recharged me to start this important year of swimming!! 

It has been a while since last time I was able to post. My excuse if there is any, is that I have been trying to recreate the last few weeks of my summer. It started with the meet I previously announced in Canada, followed by a training camp in California and a short trip to Miami….  

Canada….

It is always challenging for me to compete in Canada, the reasons are not many: Getting out of the comfort of competing in the US where I am familiar with environment of competitions. I always complain for weeks before the race. I decided to start this trip with a better attitude, but still hesitant about what was about to come. The city chosen for this race was Gatineau that shares geographic border with Ottawa, where our hotel was located. The first morning we drove to the pool, I truly enjoyed the ride; the view was beautiful, the river, the bridges and the parliament building, my perspective of the trip started to improve as I was enjoying the city.

The pool was the highlight of the trip; the building epitomized all the theory I learned in school, the materials used, its structure and form were in harmony to create a great modern building. It was not designed by an internationally acclaimed architect instead was created by a local firm from Gatineau, which made it even more valuable to me. The building is the house of many sports and serves as a community center. During this week it was manly dedicated to our competition. Every competition day was not a struggle since I was enjoying this place so much; the lighting, colors, setting, and even the spectators had a very special place in the venue. My swims were good; specially breaststroke where I was able to improve my best time in the 100 and the 200 by 3 seconds. Free style, was not a best time, but it was faster than my last competition. Backstroke, it is always a challenge!!! During this race I was not able to improve, but there is more to come. I have been practicing it more we will see what the result is in Santa Clara, California where my next competition will take place, from October 30-September 2.   

Canadian Parliament Building 

Pool building entrance 

Pool 

Jimmy Flowers Classic

The Jimmy Flower Classic, one of the most exiting competitions that I have had the opportunity to participate on. The competition is named after a great coach and amazing person that Paralympic Swimming had the privileged to have and sadly passed away in 2009. This meet honors his life and also is the opportunity to help his beautiful family.

The meet is celebrated in Colorado Springs at the OTC, which makes it very special since our team gets the support of a lot of the employees and athletes at the training center that volunteer to be timers and organizers of the event. This year was very special for me, I started the meet with the 200m BR my favorite race, and to my surprise at the end of it not only I had a good time for my race and ended first; I also had one of my coworkers standing behind my lane. He is an older man with a very kind expression behind his cowboy style, and I can tell you that swimming was defiantly not his sport. He just went to support me, as he said with his Midwest accent. He not only showed to the Saturday session but also the Sunday’s.

Also, the meet marked the beginning of a camp preparing the swim team for the Para Panamerican games that will be celebrated in Guadalajara, Mexico, in November of this year. I have the honor to be part of this team and during the Jimmy Flower Classic I met all of my teammates that will go to these games.

I must tell you how I did in my swimming during the meet but always is important for me to remember the fun parts outside of the pool since those are the motor to go fast in the water. In general all of my events went well I was first on the 100m and 50m BR as well as the 200m BR the 50m FL and the 50m FR, did not go very well but there are more races coming up and I look forward to them.

The next competition is the Speedo CanAm Para-Swimming Championships, celebrated in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, from July 15^th to 17^th. I am sure there will be a lot to say about it!

......Colorado

Colorado! Now the, “aguijon de agua dulce” - Spanish name for a fresh water type of fish-, as my grandfather used to call me, is in an inland state but lucky enough in Colorado, where instead of enjoying the waterfront I have the Rocky Mountains every morning while going to swimming practices. The reason for this big and new adventure was due to swimming, since I was selected to be part of the US Resident Team at the Olympic Training Center.  I must be honest, I miss the bay in Miami and the great times I had with family and friends but swimming and the pursuance of the dream keeps me strong. I had faced many challenges, in the sport, culturally and a very important one the weather.

When, I first arrived it was very hard to believe I was part of this place, the more I learned about the Olympic Training Center, the people training, eating and living with me, made it hard to believe I was one of them. One of the biggest challenges at the beginning was the training, my hours change from five hours a week in the water and two hours at physical therapy, to sixteen hours in the water a week plus two hours at the gym at 6,035 ft above sea level, no wonder I missed the sea, right? It took me a few months to adapt my body to the altitude, my times in the pool were slower and I did not feel like I was getting anywhere. My coach, Dave Denniston was very patient and helpful; he gave me confidence to believe it was a question of time. The results eventually proved him right; at the end of the year I was able to swim fastest times in almost all of my events at a race in Toronto, Canada.

This new journey has been a learning experience and has immersed me in the American culture that everyday intrigues me more.  Coming from a very lively town, where houses where painted pastels colors and the trees were green all year round with no transformation between summer and winter. Now in my new place, houses had very brownish colors; trees were brown with no leaves, to me I was arriving in a ghost town, what I did not realized at that moment was that this would change almost every three months and that those transformations would not only affect the trees but also the people and how they interact with nature. I have learned to enjoy each of the seasons, yes even the winter, as well, skiing, visiting the national parks, camping and eating ice cream when we are below 0° have been some of the great experiences I have had. I hope you have fun with some of the stories about my life and swimming. 

Colorado Springs, Olympic Training Center 

Morning view of the mountain from the OTC

Trying to Ski 

A little about me...

I was born in Matanzas, Cuba, a city with many rivers that ended in a beautiful bay that I had the luxury of seeing every morning on my way to school. Swimming was part of the everyday life, the beach was the public space of the neighborhood. All the kids on my block knew how to swim and "El Tennis" - the small beach right across from our houses - was our playground. At the age of seven I started swimming in a team with other kids, and competing as well. This brought my love for the sport to a different level, and not only did I want to swim for the fun of it, but I also wanted to be fast at it!!! However, after a few years of training hard everyday, I decided to try a new activity and rest a little from swimming. This time it was ballet dancing what I pursued, but I only practiced it for three years until a rare illness - AVM of the spine - affected my body and left me in a wheelchair.
This incident made me realize how important was swimming for me. I knew that the water was the only environment where my body would feel normal again. It allowed me to discover that the wheelchair was only an obstacle to do some things but not the ones I love the most.
At the age of 15 a new adventure started, our family started a new life in Miami, Fl, which I consider home today. There I decided to go back and do competitive swimming for Palmetto High School, the experience was great, I swam against able body athletes and proved one more time that the wheels did not defined me.  After high school, college began and swimming had to start playing a secondary roll while school was the priority, although the love for the sport was always there. During my third year of college, it was time to go back and this time with a BIG dream, become part of the US Paralympic Team. Together with my coaches Andrew and Belinda Philips and with Flying Fish Swim Club I had the support that allowed me to compete in trials for the China games in 2008. I did not become part of the Paralympic team that year but it was the beginning the great journey I am living today and I welcome you to join.