Where has the time Gone????

Where have the last few months gone???

It’s been a few months since my last posting, and to my surprise, the last posting was when my parents came to visit. I can’t believe that was 2 months ago.

Where has the time gone?

Salt Lake City, Utah
10-13 August 2006
To recap the last few months for those of you whom I don’t get to speak to on a regular basis, it has been busy. About 1 week after my parents departed from Bonn, I went to Salt Lake City, Utah for a meeting regarding Classification. What is Classification, you may ask? Classification is specific to paralympic sport in which athletes are classified into groups according to their ability (or disability – depending on who you are talking to). Just like gender and weight classes in wrestling, paralympic athletes compete against other athletes with similar abilities such as them. For example, visually impaired athletes compete against other visually impaired athletes and so on. It sounds like a good idea, but it’s actually a giant mess as every sport has their own classification system. And, when you first look at the systems, it is completely illogical in its format and how it is administered.

So, the IPC has spearheaded the creating of a Classification Code which is a set of guiding principles that all Paralympic sports must follow regarding classification. Similar in structure to the World Anti-Doping Code (which governs the other half of my job), it is has International Standards for specific areas of the Classificaiton process such as Athlete Evaluation, Protests and Appeals, Paralympic Games and Classifier Training and Certification.

It is quite the project and is coming along quiet nicely….hopefully it will be implemented by Beijing in 2008.

Back to Salt Lake City – It was a very productive meeting. Being that it was my first time in Salt Lake, I was very excited to view the scenery that encompassed the city. It is gorgeous. I think it was just about a year ago that I knew that there was actually a lake in the city…the Salt Lake which is very salty. Unfortunately, I did not get to do much “touristy” stuff while I was there, but the weather was beautiful, the mountains were beautiful and you couldn’t have asked for more perfect sunsets.

Colorado Springs, Colorado
13-16 August 2006
After Salt Lake, I took a detour to Colorado Springs for 2 days before heading back to Germany. It was great to see the “old gang” and catch up on everything I had missed over the last 8 months since I had seen them last.

Next stop: The Netherlands