Athletes with HSP in Commonwealth Games

Regular readers will note that I have identified athletes with HSP at the Paralympics. I thought to try and do the same for the Commonwealth Games. The organisation of the Commonwealth Games is different from the Olympics, and the Commonwealth Games website doesnt appear to have a searchable area to find athletes from the current games. So, I've had to resort to Google!

My first port of call was to look at the athletes I identified for the Olympics and see if any were taking part in the Commonwealth Games. Out of the eight athletes, only the UK and Canada have teams in the Commonwealth Games (Ukraine, Spain, Brazil and USA are not in the Commonwealth). Neither Ian Marsden or Austin Smeenk appear to be competing - Canoe/Kayak/Rowing are not in the Commonwealth Games, and Austin is not listed in the Canada team list.

My wider search for athletes with HSP on Google found three. Kieran Jones from Wales competes in both Basketball and Shot-put. You can hear an interview with Kieran here: https://anchor.fm/adventureswithaggie/episodes/AWA-X-Kieran-Jones-Shot-Put-and-Javelin--5x-British-Champion-e18ot3j - He is not shown on the Team Wales basketball team, and his focus on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Kieranjones____) now appears to be on shot put for the Paris 2024 Paralympics.

I already knew about Lily Rice, competing for Team Wales in the swimming (https://hspjourney.blogspot.com/2022/05/lily-rice-commonwealth-games.html) and recent tweets from Lily indicate she is on the path for the Games.

I also found Síomha Nic Bradaigh, competing for team Northern Ireland, also in the swimming. Various information here:

https://www.swimireland.ie/news/team-announcement-2022-commonwealth-games

https://belfastmedia.com/siomha-nic-bradaigh-commonwealth-games

Both Lily and Síomha appear to be swimming backstroke in the S8 category, so they may be competing against each other.

I will keep my eyes out and see if I can find any more athletes with HSP in the Commonwealth Games.

Symptoms update - weight gain

Just a short post for today. In the last few months I have been cycling a lot less than previously. There have been a lot of things going on, and it has been easier to spend my time focussing on those things than going off cycling.

The downside of not cycling is that my weight has increased. Also, according to my sports watch, my cardio fitness has decreased. I am considering if weight gain and decreased cardio fitness is an inevitable part of reduced mobility. 

Changes: The immediate change is to make more time for cycling to decrease my weight and increase my cardio fitness. In the longer term I'm going to need to consider if I need to make some dietary changes to influence my weight with the foresight that my mobility is on a downward trend. And, whilst it is appropriate for me to get back out on my bike more whilst I still can, I'm going to need to think about what exercises I can do in the future when riding my bike becomes more difficult.

Reminder - the benefits I get from cycling are: regular exercise, fresh air and thinking space. In a commuting to work sense I also get cost, time and environmental benefits compared with driving, as well as the avoidance of parking restrictions at/near my office.