BARRHEAD-In a little more than two months, Heidi Peters will be on an airplane heading for Tokyo, Japan and the 2021 Paralympic games.
While some people doubted the games would proceed, the 27-year-old Neerlandia native and member of Canada's Sitting Volleyball team did not doubt the games would go on.
The Tokyo Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games had been slated to begin in September 2020. However, the International Olympic Committee decided to delay them a year due to mounting pressure from the athletic and scientific communities. Canada qualified for the games in February 2020 at the Last Chance tournament in Halifax, going a perfect 6-0.
The Tokyo Games will be Peters’ second. She was part of the Canadian Sitting Volleyball squad that competed in the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They finished seventh. Currently, Canada is ranked fifth in the world.
"It was always very clear that the games would be going ahead and that Canada would be participating in them," she said. "We just had to wait to see what the protocols were going to be and wait for the vaccination rollout."
And although Peters said she and her teammates never doubted that they would be going to the games, she does admit to being a little frustrated and concerned about the lack of training opportunities due to pandemic public health restrictions.
Peters noted that because the team had already qualified for the games, the postponement of the Paralympics was potentially a good thing, as it gave them extra time to train, at least individually.
"Yes, we had to be apart a bit more, which sucked, but it did give us more time to work on stuff," she said, adding despite the restrictions the squad was able to have three, five-day training camps.
But things became more difficult after the third wave engulfed the majority of the country.
Finding places to train, Peters said, became supremely difficult after the province imposed what might have been the most stringent public health restrictions of the pandemic in December.
"That shut all sports down and training opportunities down," she said.
Peters added that she and some of her other teammates were fortunate enough to have been able to set up home gyms, so they could continue to work on their conditioning, but not all were so lucky.
That is why the national team applied to Alberta Health Services for an exemption to allow them to use the facilities at the University of Alberta's Saville Community Sports Centre, which serves as the home for the Canadian Sitting Volleyball team. They were granted the exemption in March.
"We were fortunate that they remained open because most of the university teams did not get exemptions. We are the only onezs training in there right now," Peters said. "And while that is somewhat of a comforting feeling, limiting our potential contacts and exposure, it is a strange feeling being the only ones there. It is usually such a bustling facility."
And while the team has been granted an exemption, she said practices and the mini-training camps are vastly different than those pre-COVID.
Since their lineup is made up of players across the county, Peters noted that before the start of any camp, players must have a negative COVID test.
"We have a training bubble when we are practising with various bubbles, such as the B.C. and Edmonton groups remaining distanced and wearing masks," Peters said. "During a training camp, we can be a little closer together so we can block each other, but we still must remain masked all the time."
Recently the contingent completed their latest mini-training camp, in preparation for a series of exhibition matches against the US in Edmund, Oklahoma.
When they return to Canada, due to the two-week quarantine requirement, the players will stay together in a bubble and train for two weeks, in either Toronto or Calgary, depending on what accommodation and training facilities are available.
"Ideally, Calgary, as it is a lot closer for a lot of our athletes, but Toronto has a better accommodation set up. The sporting facility we would use has townhouses right beside it," she said.
After the quarantine period ends, the players will go their own way, coming back together in early August, to Edmonton for the final training camp before heading to Japan and the Paralympic games.
Upon their arrival around Aug. 12, they will stay in a town about seven hours outside of Tokyo to get acclimated to everything, before heading to the athletes' village.
Before leaving for Japan, the team is going through the process of vaccinating all their players.
"Not everyone has received their first shot yet," Peters said, adding as of June 1, there were still a couple of players waiting for vaccination dates.
However, she expects before the team leaves for Japan that everyone will have both doses.
"Being fully vaccinated is very important because it could impact your ability to play. In Tokyo, if you are a close contact with someone who has tested positive for the coronavirus, if you have both doses and test negative you don't have to quarantine," she said.
Peters also expressed how honoured she was to be able to represent Canada on the international stage and urged Canadians to follow the team preparation for the games through their Instagram account.
She also noted how important it was that the Paralympic Games take place.
"The Paralympics are so amazing and important and deserve immense recognition and promotion. I am very passionate about advocating for the Paralympics and para-sport movement," Peters said. "As a Paralympian, I am part of such a strong community of athletes who have all overcome something immensely difficult in life and worked hard to be able to compete at the highest possible level."
Peters became involved in the Paralympic movement after undergoing treatment for osteosarcoma, a bone cancer, which saw her left leg amputated. She was first diagnosed with it in September 2011.
It was during these treatments that she met Jolan Wong, a player in the Canadian Women’s National Sitting Volleyball program. Like Peters, Wong lost her leg to osteosarcoma about seven years earlier.
It was Wong who first suggested that Peters try out for the national sitting volleyball club.
In May 2013, Peters, who played volleyball throughout her Barrhead Composite High School career, successfully tried out for the national team, where she has remained since.
Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com
