I also want to share a small piece of advice that worked quite well for me whilst spectating in Rio. On the first night that we were there, the opening ceremony, I didn't have a particularly enjoyable evening. The Olympics is always emotional for me as one of my goals was to coach there and I didn't manage to find a way to achieve that. On the night of the opening ceremony I felt quite overwhelmed. We were kindly hosted by the Olympians Centre for the ceremony and I fully indulged in the generous free bar, and then Peter and I proceeded to have a huge argument about nothing at all. So the next day I decided to set myself some rules for the next week, just as a way of managing the inevitable emotional highs and lows. These were as follows:
No bickering
Prepare for the emotion
Empathise – think selfless and humble
Drink responsibly!!!
Although I'm not sure I stuck to them, it definitely helped to have thought these through. The aim was not be be an emotionless cold fish, I don't have anything against emotion, but I didn't want to behave in a way that I would regret or that could be embarrassing. I wanted to get out of my own head and think of everyone around me, athletes and parents, winners and losers, and I definitely didn't want the high stress of it all to lead to any more arguments! At an event where emotions run permanently through the roof it's not a bad strategy to think about this beforehand and give yourself some guidelines on how you want to manage it, and how you want to present yourself for your young athlete and to other parents around you.
So, now that we are home and the Olympics continues in Rio, I am now loving it (almost as much) from my sofa. We are going to start saving for Tokyo now, whatever the future holds for Jack. I will leave you with a few more photos from my Rio experience. And remember, if you have enjoyed these posts, please like and share and help other parents of young athletes have an uplifting and positive experience of their child's sport.