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Families Diaries
Thursday 12th February
Divisioning today for the Slalom on Friday. Most of the families headed up to Bogus whilst some took the opportunity to pursue other activities. The Great Aunt Jean visited the floor Hockey and the Figure Skating. The Murphy's from Scariff and Clontarf headed to the Mall!
The Scariff Murphy's were left trailing in Clontarf wake! Within one hour Ailish had dragged the US economy out of recession and had time for a makeover!
On the Mountain the Divisioning went well, all Athletes completed their runs and were looking forward to Racing on Friday.
The remaining supporters, joined now by the Scariff Murphy's, turned their attention to the mountain and went skiing. What a fantastic afternoon it was, Barry Murphy, the man who never skied before was showing off, skiing down the black runs on one ski! When that seemed too easy, finishing the run with no skis at all!
The evening was finished with Dinner at our now regular Italian restaurant and off to bed early in prep for the final days racing.
Go Ireland!
Volunteers' Diaries
Day 5 - Tuesday 10 Feb
Back at the Expo Idaho for more preliminary games in the floor hockey. Today we had more of the same, with many games going right to the wire.
At one of the games the atmosphere got so hot and heavy that three of the players and a coach were sent off from the court.
But in other games we see the kind of Olympic spirit that kind of blows you away. Kazakhstan were playing one of the USA teams in a unified game. Unified is where the teams are made up of Special Olympics athletes and Partners (people who don't have an intellectual disability). Early in the game Kazakhstan started to pull away with a clear lead. Instead of going for the kill, the partner players on the Kazakhstan team pulled back, allowed their Athletes, and the USA Athletes, to take more part in the game. The referees described it as "classy". Great stuff!
Again today we were split in to two shifts. Some of those not working in the morning took the opportunity to go up the mountain to see Team Ireland race. We knew today we had a chance of medals and we were all delighted to hear about us winning a gold and three bronze medals.
The volunteers with the afternoon off were brought down to the town hall today for a reception with the mayor, Irish Dancing and a pipe band. The Irish community here in Boise pulled some strings to make this happen. We really owe these guys a lot - they've been absolutely wonderful and have really looked after us.
They also organised for us to go to a Cowboy BBQ in O'Micheals this evening. Matt English, CEO of Special Olympics Ireland, was one of those who said a few words of thanks to our gracious hosts.
Families Diaries
Wednesday 11 February
A couple of inches of snow had fallen overnight, making driving conditions a little tricky on the way up to Bogus. If they made the driving conditions trickier, the skiing conditions were completely different!
We all gathered nervously for the first morning runs. The times from the morning runs were to be added to the times from the afternoon.
Colin O'Reilly came all the way up to Bogus despite having to catch a flight in the afternoon. Would he get to here the results before he left? Having been such a brilliant supporter all week, it would be terrible for him to leave not knowing. He didn't have to wait, Loraine nailed it again! Gold!
Rebecca pushed hard beating her morning run and took silver! Clara, another Bronze! Cathal, the whole mountain breathed a sign of relief as he took what he deserved, silver! Ryan's blood was up, not to be out done by Loraine he pushed hard and took Gold by just 400th of a second. Charlie, Ben and Katherine all pushed hard and improved their personal bests and did us proud yet again on the podium.
The podium celebrations went on and on. Nobody wanted the feeling to end. Long after all the other teams had taken to their busses the Irish fans, athletes and brilliant coaches sang and cheered and hugged each other.
Eventually we left Bogus, looking forward to divisioning tomorrow and the final races on Friday, The Slalom.
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