Third Day on The Ground - A Dad's Diary by Clayton Frech - August 24th, 2021
This blog post originated from Clayton’s Frech’s personal Facebook page. He is chronicling his journey as a dad with his son that is headed to Tokyo.
Wow, I feel like each day keeps getting more interesting…. Day 3 I got up and packed and heading over to the Athlete Village in time to join the zoom call with the 2nd Gentleman, Doug Emhoff. Mr. Emhoff was at the US Embassy in Tokyo and is serving as The White House’s official delegation leader joining us for the Games. He spoke a bit and then did some Q&A with a few select athletes. It was a really special moment.
Then I met Ezra for a shakeout workout in the Village. There’s a small track with some grass in the middle, so that’s where we went. It’s a great spot – has a beautiful fountain and an agitos you can take photos in front of. IT’s the edge of the wharf, so the battle ships and harbor are all around you. Really cool. We started filming for one of the media projects we are doing with the IPC and Samsung.
Ezra and a few other athletes and I grabbed lunch in the dining hall. He went back to his room to do some recovery and I stayed in the dining hall on the 2nd floor near the windows. I was innocently doing some work, checking social media, posting, writing, etc. and then I started to notice groups of athletes organizing. I didn’t understand what was going on at first… then I realized, they are staging for Opening Ceremonies! I had a front row view – many of the teams had to pass by the dining hall to get to the transport! I felt so honored to be there…
At about 5:30pm I ran down to the US building to record Ezra walking in the procession. It was so fun out there! The entire team was out and about, taking photos, having fun! I covered their walk to the bus and it took a long time for the buses to leave, but I got some great shots of Ez and the team!
I raced back to the hotel to watch the Opening Ceremonies! Unfortunately, with the cable restrictions I was only able to watch the Japan TV feed, which didn’t talk much about US athletes at all. However, I still got emotional seeing Ezra up front behind the flag bearers!! My 16 year old kid is at the Paralympics!
This was such an incredible day. I really felt like it was historic. It was a day I’ll never forget. It was a day that I felt so honored to be a part of. The team, the athletes were so pumped! Even though it was a night full of waiting in lines. It was still wonderful…
I attended the Rio Opening Ceremonies and it was incredible. Epic. Powerful. But honestly, this was better. I was down on the street, walking along the team. I was able to really feel the energy of the procession and the US delegation. It really meant a lot to me… I also realize I will likely never have this opportunity again. And certainly Ez will never be 16 again!
The USA was walking at the very end of the event, so the buses left just before 8pm our time…. Ezra said it was amazing to walk into the stadium…. He somehow worked his way to the front of the pack right behind Melissa and Chuck, the flag bearers. So there are some really good photos of the delegation and he’s right there. Pretty cool. Pretty special moment.
Once he boarded the bus, I ran out of there to get a cab and go back to the hotel to watch. It turned out I had to watch on Japanese TV (English feed), and they blazed by so fast I could barely see Ezra. Once the US appeared I got some text messages from friends and family that a video about Ezra had aired during opening ceremonies! So cool and so grateful to the team at NBC for giving Ezra some coverage!
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