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Inclusive Sports

Amy Bockerstette Becomes First Person with Down Syndrome to Compete in Collegiate Championship

May 12, 2021 by Tara S

By: Joel Baell

Amy Bockerstette became the first person with Down syndrome to compete in a national collegiate athletic championship.

Bockerstette, 22, teed off Monday at the National Junior College Athletic Association national championship at Plantation Bay Golf & Country Club in Ormond Beach, Fla., representing Phoenix’s Paradise Valley Community College.

A Special Olympian in Arizona, Bockerstette catapulted to stardom when she was given the chance to play a practice-round hole with Gary Woodland at the 2019 Waste Management Phoenix Open. At TPC Scottsdale’s par-3 16th, Bockerstette made a “Did you see that?” up-and-down for par, telling Woodland “I got this” before sinking an eight-foot putt. A performance, wrapped in Bockerstette’s indelible positivity and Woodland’s sincere joy, that went viral twice: the week of the Phoenix Open and again after Woodland won the U.S. Open later that year.

[Read more…] about Amy Bockerstette Becomes First Person with Down Syndrome to Compete in Collegiate Championship

Filed Under: Athlete Spotlight, Golf, Inclusive Sports, Women's Sports

‘BEING TOLD I COULDN’T’: INSPIRING STORIES FROM BATES FEMALE ATHLETES

March 9, 2021 by Tara S

By Jay Burns

The growing pains for athletes go beyond shin splints and pulled muscles. 

A native of San Salvador, El Salvador, Erika Parker ’23 loved squash from the get-go, competing in and winning youth tournaments throughout the Americas as a young athlete.

The problem was, she loved winning more than the sport itself. And with greater competition came losses, which became harder and harder for her to deal with. Her self-doubt grew. She questioned why she was spending so much time on the sport.

She recalled how her father asked if she regretted the time she’d given to the sport. Frustrated and angry, Parker said that yes: It was all a waste.

[Read more…] about ‘BEING TOLD I COULDN’T’: INSPIRING STORIES FROM BATES FEMALE ATHLETES

Filed Under: Inclusive Sports, Women's Sports

Paralympic Superstar Alice Tai Signs With Speedo

March 1, 2021 by Tara S

by: Brandi West

Speedo, the world’s leading swimwear brand, has today announced the signing of British Paralympic swimmer Alice Tai MBE.

Tai, who competes in the SB8, SM8 and S8 categories, is a champion at Paralympic, World, European and Commonwealth level and will look to add to her already stellar career at this summer’s Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

[Read more…] about Paralympic Superstar Alice Tai Signs With Speedo

Filed Under: Athlete Spotlight, Inclusive Sports, Paralympics, Swimming, Women's Sports

Skier Has Sights Set on Paralympics After Overcoming Setbacks

February 13, 2021 by Tara S

Paige VanArsdale Paralympic skier

by: Arielle Orsuto

Paige VanArsdale is a skier with cerebral palsy. After suffering a concussion in 2017 during her Paralympic training, she faced more obstacles than she imagined.

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — Carving through white powder while representing the Stars and Stripes — it’s been a goal for Paige VanArsdale for nearly her whole life.

“I’ve dreamed of it ever since I started skiing when I was three years old,” she said.

[Read more…] about Skier Has Sights Set on Paralympics After Overcoming Setbacks

Filed Under: Athlete Spotlight, Inclusive Sports, Paralympics, Skiing

American Gold Sports Alliance Launches Their Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Committee

February 1, 2021 by Tara S

The American Gold Sports Alliance is proud to announce the launch of their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee. AGSA believes in the power of student-athletes to build trust, unity, and togetherness among people from all backgrounds. We also acknowledge that athletics are not immune to the impact of bias or discrimination. We accept that it is our responsibility to take action to reduce the impact of bias and discrimination so that student-athletes of all backgrounds are provided the best opportunity to be successful.

[Read more…] about American Gold Sports Alliance Launches Their Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Committee

Filed Under: General, Inclusive Sports, LGBTQ+

Paralympic ambition: Susana Rodriguez on a mission to succeed in Tokyo

January 7, 2021 by Tara S

by Courtney Akrigg on 07 Jan, 2021 05:19 •  Español

Susana Rodriguez was born with albinism. In 2013, the Spanish Para Triathletes was acknowledged as Athlete of the Year by the city of Vigo in Spain and in 2016 she represented Spain at the Paralympic Games, the year the sport of para triathlon made its Paralympic debut.
Susana started her para triathlon career in 2010, earning the World Para Triathlon Championship gold medal in London and then again the following year in Madrid. After representing at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympic Games, where she placed 5th, Susana Rodriguez went on to earn back-to-back world titles at the 2018 World Championship Series on the Gold Coast and 2019 in Lausanne.

“Trust is a must for visual impaired training and racing, it is the only thing that will allow you to push the hardest.”
“I would like to race my second Paralympic Games this year in Tokyo and try to win a medal although it will be very difficult. What I have no doubt is that I will do my best.”
“When you love something you don’t care about the effort you put on it or the hard it is, you just go for it.”

Susana Rodriguez shares career highlights, discusses how para triathlon has developed and shaped her life, her ambition to medal at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo this year and being the first blind woman to become a medical doctor in Spain.

WT: Your career is impressive, you won gold in London 2010 and again in Madrid in 2011. You represented Spain at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympic Games and earnt back-to-back world para triathlon titles at the on the Gold Coast (2018) and Lausanne (2019).
What is it about the sport of para triathlon that keeps you motivated to train and compete?
SR: I have done different sports all my life even though my family is not at all from a sporting background. I started to compete when I was 10 in athletics attending a Spanish Championship for visually impaired children in Madrid and I really enjoyed and had some nice results without training. Then I did swimming and some more sprint track racing where I had my first international racing experience as a teenager. In 2008 I had the MQS for participating in Beijing Paralympics at 100m but Spain had 6 female slots and we were 7 woman with qualifying times, so I had to stay at home. I was very disappointed so I stopped doing sports for a couple of years but in 2010 I found para triathlon.

For me it was a challenge to do my first duathlon race. I had never completed that distance before, had never done tandem racing and I wanted to try just to finish one. I liked it so much that I decided to have a go in a super sprint triathlon at Casa de Campo in Madrid. I bought a tandem bike and as soon as we crossed the finish line a woman from World Triathlon called Sarah Spingmann told my guide and I that she would like us to race in London as triathlon was after the bid of making its Paralympic debut in Rio 2016. We put the tandem inside a cardboard box and left to London. I really enjoyed the triathlon atmosphere and never left the sport since then.

Going faster and being stronger is what keeps me motivated and also working hard for a long time in the sport while it keeps growing and the level gets higher in para triathlon.

WT: Where/how do you currently train and how important is the relationship and trust with your guide?
SR: I train in Vigo, where I was born in. Several times a year we leave the city looking for training camps in better weather conditions, as the winter here is very wet and rainy and we also relocate for altitude training in southern Spain. I do 5 swimming sessions, 5/6 bike sessions (some on the tandem some on the turbo), 5 running plus some gym, physiotherapy and stretching. Except for the turbo sessions I do the whole training with a guide (triathlon guide Sara or track guide Celso) or some other great friends that help me all the year.
Trust is a must for visual impaired training and racing, it is the only thing that will allow you to push the hardest.

WT: Race highlights?
SR: I think there are three races that stand out as highlights over others. The first one was 2012 Auckland because it was my first time competing at the Para Triathlon World Championships and my guide in those times (Mayalen) and I travelled so far without any kind of help and we did a great job there,
The second one it is 2014 Kitbuhel Paratriathlon European Championships because it was my first continental title and I had a great 400m finish battling against Melissa Reid from GBR who is a good friend and has been in the sport for a long time like me. The third I would choose Gold Coast 2018 Grand Final because I love Australia and I had worked very hard after Rio 2016 to try to get back on the podium.

WT: How do you think para triathlon has developed since you’ve been competing?
SR: It has progressed a lot. If I compare my first World Championships in 2012 with last years in Lausanne, it is a different world. We have a ranking system for entering races, which means that you have to work hard to have a spot on each important competition, national teams have developed structures now that help the para triathletes get to the races in the best conditions as the elite athletes we are. There has also been many competition rules changes and the sports level is much higher. One example of this, my first World Championships was won running 4.30 min/km while my last world title was won running 3.51 min/km.

WT: You also have another very important career, in the medical industry, outside of your professional one in para triathlon?
SR: I studied Medicine at Santiago de Compostela University from 2009 to 2015 and then did the exam for becoming an intern in 2016. I was studying quite hard before Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. And the last four years I have been working on physical medicine and rehabilitation department to become a specialist in this area. 2020 was a surprise with the COVID-19 pandemic and during some months, like many medical professionals in Spain, we left our daily work to join the battle against coronavirus. It was a quite hard year and still is even now I have stopped my medical job until I am back from Tokyo Paralympic Games. I am the first blind woman to become a medical doctor in Spain and I am very pleased because I love my work.

WT: How did you find the balance with your medical job and para triathlon training and competing?
SR: It was very hard. Now that I am just training I realised how crazy my life was trying to balance it all. I worked from 8am to 3pm got home at 5pm because of public transport schedule and then did my whole training from 6 pm until I finished. I used my holidays for competing which means I did not have any rest time since Rio 2016 until 2020. But I say that when you love something you don’t care about the effort you put on it or the hard it is, you just go for it.

WT: How have you coped/adapted with the challenges presented during 2019 and the ongoing pandemic?
SR: As I said 2020 has been a challenge for me since the beginning. In January I was diagnosed with a heart condition and there were some weeks when I was waiting for some genetic tests that I did not know If I could keep doing para triathlon because of swimming. Luckily all the final assessment results were quite fast and I am so pleased with my cardiologist Dr Maria Alvarez who explained things clearly and made it easier for me to make decisions. I was cleared to train and compete, started medication, created a security plan and later in the year had a little surgery to getting a cardiac monitor device implanted which is now inside my chest. It is all a bit weird but now I am very happy because all the data is transferred each night to the hospital and if there is any further concerns, I will know. I am now able to push hard again in each training session which was something that I missed for months. The sensation of doing something you love and doubting if you are at the correct place or you should be at home was not nice.
In between all the races were cancelled, training venues closed for a long time but I have tried to keep positive and enjoyed training at home every day. When I was back from work and I feel pleased that I could help in the health industry in Spain.
I have learnt a lot from this ongoing situation: there is nothing as important as health and life goes first and before anything.

WT: If you had advice for other aspiring athletes who may want to get into triathlon or para triathlon, what would it be?
SR: I would say that it is a very inclusive sport and that is not for super heroes as people think. You can start with shorter distances to see if you like it but I always say that if you do one you will repeat. I am absolutely in love with this sport because you never get bored and you can always do new things in training to improve.

WT: What else would you like to achieve in the sport?
SR: First of all I would like to race my second Paralympic games in Tokyo and try to win a medal although it will be very difficult. What I have no doubt is that I will do my best!
I also would like to work across clean sport initiatives and to acknowledge young athletes and coaches of the importance of knowing how to act in case of a sudden cardiac arrest with CPR and how to use an AED.

WT: Who has been your greatest influence?
SR: My family and especially my sister, she has been my best role model to follow. 

Find out more about World Para Triathlon.

Filed Under: Athlete Spotlight, Inclusive Sports, Paralympics, Running

NOELLE LAMBERT NAMED 2020 WOMEN OF WORTH NATIONAL HONOREE

December 14, 2020 by Tara S

Noelle Lambert In Running Position

NEW YORK, N.Y. – UMass Lowell women’s lacrosse alum Noelle Lambert was named the 2020 Women of Worth National Honoree, as announced by L’Oréal Paris on Giving Tuesday.
 
After being named one of 10 Women of Worth finalists and receiving $10,000 for her Born to Run Foundation back in October, Lambert was selected as the 2020 National Honoree through a nationwide, online public vote. She was honored with an additional $25,000 to support her mission of providing specialized prosthetics to amputees.
 
“It is such an incredible honor to be the 2020 Women of Worth National Honoree,” said Lambert. “To be recognized among the other nine amazing honorees is such a humbling experience. Thank you so much to every single person who voted for myself and the Born to Run Foundation. This wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for you. And lastly, thank you so much to L’Oréal Paris for this amazing donation and all of this recognition. This is going to change so many people’s lives.”
 

[Read more…] about NOELLE LAMBERT NAMED 2020 WOMEN OF WORTH NATIONAL HONOREE

Filed Under: Athlete Spotlight, Inclusive Sports, Lacrosse, Women's Sports

Together We Can Move Forward — With Inclusive Minds

December 8, 2020 by Tara S

Timothy Shriver | Business Insider speaking to kids

By: Timothy Shriver |Business Insider Photo By: Heather O’Connell

You don’t have to be a particularly close observer of America’s social and political discourse — or even of any particular politician — to know how crude, vicious, and divisive we have all become. Leaders in politics and media model bullying, boasting and ridicule with a perpetual undercurrent of disgust. Leaders lead that way, and followers follow, and down into the depths of division we all sink. In the long run, shaming and exclusion have only one certain outcome: more anxiety, more anger, and more exclusion.

This pattern of scapegoating and divisiveness has a particularly destructive effect on children. Anxiety is at epidemic levels among young people, damaging relationships and achievement. Behavior problems, disengagement, and emotional distress are all serious challenges among all groups of children and interfere with both learning and flourishing. 

Neuroscience makes the case even more starkly:  social connection drives learning and the brain has a social filter:  if relationships are weak or damaged, learning is too. On top of these challenges, schools are increasingly diverse and rightly responsible for optimizing the chances for all children to feel welcome and supported. If a pattern of bullying and divisiveness exists, children of all backgrounds will suffer.

[Read more…] about Together We Can Move Forward — With Inclusive Minds

Filed Under: Inclusive Sports

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