Ninth Day on the Ground: Another Day of Rest, Badminton, and the Golden Necklace - A Dad's Diary - August 30th, 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.

Another day of rest but a lot more going on. I got Ezra a gift of a badminton set, as he and a few of the guys were debating what sports they should add for Paris. I suggested badminton and few of them got excited to try and compete in a new sport. This was all half joking but half serious….

So I wrapped up the racket set and he had NO IDEA what it was. Kind of funny. Ezra told Trent to come down to the lobby and he surprised him with the set and they volleyed in the lobby for a few minutes. I am sure that set will be out as soon as Ezra is done with competition!

We filmed a couple things and then I headed out on a serious errand. To see if Ottobock could fix Ezra’s necklace that he wears at all of his meets? The necklace was his grandfather’s, who passed away in 2015. He has an angel wing in his grandfather’s honor, and a “road to Tokyo” intent charm that helps him remember the road he has travelled to get there, the sacrifice.

I found one of my contacts at the Ottobock repair center and he grabbed it and said, sure, we’ll figure this out. They ended up using a small copper wire and attaching the two sides. Then Jeff invited me back to see it and I helped him apply some tape to the break as well. It looks like a little necklace “cast” of sorts. Ezra called it a band-aid. It’s super cute. There’s no breaking Ezra’s connection to his father in law, that’s for sure.

Ezra got a massage, did some compression on his legs, and then did an ice bath. He’s got his pre-jump session routine dialed in. He loves ice baths, loves how he feels afterwards. He’s been doing ice baths for years. There was a time when we didn’t really understand the science behind them and he probably stayed in too long. But we have figured it out now.

After that, we grabbed dinner and Ezra went up to his room to relax and chill before going to bed. I watched a little more of the Games and then went to find a taxi… on the way to the taxi stand I got Ezra one last little gift for tomorrow. I’ll probably give it to him on the warm-up track or in the bus on the way. It’s something between us, but it will bring a huge smile to his face I know it.

OK, that’s it for today!

Time to sleep for the big day!

Clayton

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