October 3, 2007

9:44 p.m. in Shanghai (8:12 a.m. in Texas)

We woke up this morning to see the Opening Ceremonies celebration televised on numerous stations here in China.  It seemed whatever channel you flipped to, you saw Special Olympics!  The coverage was equally dominant in print media as well.  Click here to see the October 3 front page of the Shanghai Daily newspaper.  Don't forget to tune in to view the excitement: ABC Family Channel will air a two-hour taped special of Opening Ceremonies on October 4 (check your local listings for airtime). 

Game on!  The competition kicked off today with preliminaries and divisioning in aquatics, badminton, basketball, bocce, gymnastics, roller skating and MATP.  While some of our athletes were part of the action, others have to wait until later this week to hit the playing field.

Slow to start, competition did not get underway until after lunch.  We were able to make it to two venues in the short first afternoon: Shanghai Pudong Natatorium and the Shanghai International Gymnastics Center. 

Our first stop was aquatics, where we were lucky enough to see both of the SOTX athletes who are competing in aquatics, Ashley Billard of Houston and Texas Nelson of Denton.  Texas dove right into prelims today, and Ashley was there to cheer him and Team USA on (she won't compete until later in the week).  We also caught up with SOTX West Program Supervisor, Freddie Taylor of Amarillo, who is serving as an Additional Staff Member for Team USA (Aquatics).

We were thrilled to then arrive at gymnastics in time to see several familiar faces, SOTX athletes: Houstin Gardiner of North Richland Hills, Madeline Braley and Brittany Manworren of Plano, Jessica Clopp of Pollok, and Katie Shepherd of Greenville with the SOTX coach and Team USA Gymnastics Head Coach, Renee Manworren.  Be sure to check the "Photos" page for the shots that we snapped today.

Navigating the city poses some challenges, as Shanghai is so large and the streets so congested.  It is difficult to make it to more than just one or two venues - as we were warned.   Tomorrow there will be a full day of competition in a total of 18 sports... so again, MUCH more to come.  Check back often!