Everybody is a winner before the medals are awarded at the 2012 Special Olympics Canada Winter Games.
It’s a major accomplishment for the 651 participants to represent their province or territory at the seventh national winter festival for athletes with an intellectual disability.
“Everybody celebrates everybody’s success,” said Barb Prystai, Team Alberta’s figure skating coach for the Games. “They are there to compete and to win, there is no doubt about it, but on the other side of the coin they celebrate the joy of the moment.”
Prystai, 55, has coached Special Olympic athletes at several provincials, nationals and Canada Games and every time it’s an emotional rollercoaster.
“You have to have a lot of Kleenex. You just cry. It’s just so opposite of what you’re used to in competition or tournaments or anything really. You’re just not prepared for the way the athletes behave the way they do. There is no pretence. They’re truly joyful,” said the Calgary resident.
“I remember one year there was this girl and she was the only one in her category. She came up to me and goes, ‘Do you really think I have a chance at a medal?’ I went, ‘You know, I think you might.’ She came back after and said ‘Oh my gosh! I can’t believe I came first!’ They’re just so genuine. They celebrate life.”
Figure skating is one of seven sports that will be showcased at the Feb. 28 to March 3 Games in St. Albert and Jasper. Forty-five skaters will perform in singles (levels 1 to 6), pairs (levels 1 to 3), ice dancing (levels 1 to 4), male free skate, female free skate, male dance, female dance, pairs free skate and pairs dance at Servus Credit Union Place.
“They’re like a preliminary juvenile type level skater and that’s a category in skating,” Prystai said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a Special Olympian or you’re Patrick Chan, the table of jumps doesn’t change.”
The skaters from Alberta are Kennedy Zaytsoff (level 5 singles, level 3 dance) of Strathmore, Kristina Hansen (level 4 singles, level 1 dance) of Airdrie, Meg Ohsada (level 3 singles, level 1 dance) of Canmore and Rachel Ryan (level 2 singles) of Calgary.
They range in age from 16 to 44 and have represented the province before at various Special Olympics competitions.
Prystai’s role at the Games is more like a manager than a coach.
“What I do is contact their coaches and say this is what this athlete has to work on specifically for their level. We make sure that we’re preparing each athlete to the best that we can for them,” she said. “Basically I’m kind of a liaison between the coaches. Skating is skating but I have to make sure they understand the Special O side of it. We all have to follow Skate Canada rules but then there are little idiosyncrasies that belong to Special Olympics that if you’re not in it you won’t understand.”
Prystai said the skaters are counting down the days before the Games kick off after attending last month’s training camp in St. Albert.
“That’s when it really struck them. This is it and here it is. They were practicing in the venue they knew they were going to be competing at. It’s that home-team advantage. They’re comfortable being where they are,” she said. “We also had a lot of media there because Jamie Sale came out. It was crazy. Usually you go to a training camp and you’re lucky if there are two people in the rink and all of a sudden you had all of these cameras going so it was really good for them to get used to all the hype surrounding the Games.”
This is the third nationals for Prystai since joining the Special Olympics movement after moving to Alberta from Saskatchewan. She saw an ad looking for volunteers and was quickly recruited to coach figure skaters.
“I’ve been around people with disabilities my whole life and this kind of fit what I was looking for,” she said. “Once you’re in, you’re in. You’re hooked.”
