Day Five on the Ground - A Dad's Diary - August 26th, 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.
IPC Media Day
Thursday I had to get up early and hustle to the village to meet Ezra at 9:30am for some media. Ezra went live with Paralympian (he playe 7 a side soccer or CP soccer in Beijing) Richard Fox, from the Paralympic Games, on the Paralympics Tik Tok channel.
Team Ezra and Richard had an immediate and wonderful level of comfort and camaraderie. Then after we finished the Tik Tok segment he filmed two more interviews for the IPC. In the TT segment it was fascinating to watch the comments flowing in. It is genuinely surprising to me how snarky people are on social media. I just don’t get it. I don’t really understand how/why anyone thinks that way… Ezra just laughs this stuff off, which is great.
Afterwards we grabbed lunch and cancelled an Ottobock visit in order to get Ezra some massage therapy. Without our chiropractor Amit here, we have to go heavy in massage. Ez had a team meeting at 2:30pm while I hung out on the first floor of the US “block” as the apartment building is called and did some writing and social media. It was wonderful to be there as I ran into tons of athletes, includer Para-archers Lia and Emma. Lia just had her chair cut down – the back of her wheelchair was deemed illegal and her coach cut it down to meet the requirements.
Also had a really good chat with Jarryd Wallace and Roderick D. Townsend about the fragmented nature of information around amputee blade running. We have a lot to do to better disseminate expertise and support so everyone can participate and realize their potential.
Muscling Ezra up to this level has taught me so much about the resources and expertise required to develop an elite athlete. And now with Angel City Sports I am on a mission to make sure EVERYBODY has the same opportunities to participate and compete at an elite level, regardless of your sport, background, ethnicity, income level, etc.
Afternoon Training Session with Sam Grewe
By 3:30pm we were getting ready to head out to the Okura Sports Park for an afternoon jumps session. NBC NBC Olympics NBC Sports was planning to join us, but intially couldn’t rally a crew… But then at the last minute they split a crew up to send two guys to cover this special session with Ezra and Sam Grewe. It's the only jumps session these two will have as Ezra shuts down to prep for LJ, and then has two days of rest ahead of the HJ. It's go time!
The relationship between Ezra and Sam is deep. They always say, they compete “with” each other, not against each other. Sam has literally been there for Ezra since Ezra was 9 or 10 years old. Ezra has been calling and texting Sam for high jump advice since that day. Honestly, they have never lived in the same town but they have been inseparable.
Ezra was motivated in 2016 to pursue the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games mostly by watching Sam win the Silver medal. That year, I was in Rio with LA2024 (before we won the bid and got 2028). I had access to all venues and scrambled through the crazy traffic of Rio to get to the venue to watch Sam jump. I knew Ezra would want me to watch that event, more than anything else I did in Rio. (Side note, Ezra and our family was supposed to go but with Zika virus looming I was the only family member that went). I remember my driver took me through a bad neighborhood, and he told me to roll up my windows and be careful. They motorcycle thieves are known to rob people through the taxi window! I arrived pretty late, running through the stadium. I had no idea where he was jumping.
I ran down the concourse for a little bit, randomly turned in, only to be at THE EXACT LOCATION Sam was jumping at. I raced down as close to the track as I could get. It turned out, I was sitting right behind his family and supporters, including Keri Serota from Dare2tri! So COOOL. It was an amazing moment. My favorite moment was one of the competitors tweaked his shoulders and Sam walked over and gave him a little massage to help him out. THIS IS SPORT. THIS IS PARALYMPIC SPORT. We support our fellow competitors. We honor our fellow competitors. It is honestly pure sport, so beautiful… I had no idea this type of community existed in sport. It seems so contrary to the scandals, cheating, bribery, trash talking, and bitter rivalries that seem to plague many elite sports…
We first met Sam at Desert Challenge Games in Arizona hosted by Arizona Disabled Sports. Sam has gone on to win a Silver medal at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games and has 3 Gold medals from the 2015, 2017, and 2019 World Championships. At the 2019 World Championships, Ezra was 14 and came in 7th in the high jump. It was so cool to watch them at that meet. They are like brothers. Their relationship will make the High Jump final that much more interesting!!! Tuesday 8/31 at 3:25am the T63 High Jump event starts! Get your access figured out ahead of time! See my posts or Angel City Sports FB page for more information!
They did a workout and jumps session with NBC filming… So fun to have their crew out on the track. They really appreciate both Ez and Sam and repeatedly said how stoked they were to be there with us. When we can work so closely with the media, I think we can really tell better stories… It feels like more of a partnership, or a collaboration… Not just the media telling the story they want to tell, which is a pretty common experience for me.
After that I went back to the hotel with LaTi and received a couple really cool gifts for Ezra from some Japanese fans. I will share more about these when I present them to Ezra later today.
The next couple of days…
Friday will be a major rest day… and in fact Saturday much of the day will be rest as well. Ezra does very well when he has closer to two days of rest.
He long jumps Saturday at 3:51am PST (look for T63 Long Jump)! We feel blessed that Regas Woods will be jumping with him!! Regas was a late add to the team and he’s one of our favorite athletes. He’s a brilliant coach, technically and emotionally, and is also a trusted friend. Having him out on the field is really good for Ezra. They both bring the right approach, have fun, but stay focused on the task at hand when you need to be focused. I am hoping they both come out and hit some PRs (personal records) and show the world their full potential!!!
Let’s goooo Ezra!
Clayton
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