Our PSR 'Olympian' Donovan inspires students

Olympian inspires students
By Natasha Jones -
Langley Times -
June 13, 2008

Blind Paralympian swimmer Donovan Tildesley, who medalled in Athens, and Belmont Elementary student Emily Roberts meet following Tildesley’s talk to the school’s students on Tuesday morning. Tildesley will once again represent Canada this summer in Beijing. John GORDON/Langley Times

He can’t have been older than five or six. He filed into the school gym with his classmates and got a front-row place where he sat, crossed legged, on the wooden floor.

The gym grew louder and louder, as they do when two or three hundred children come in from recess, their playtime voices not yet hushed.

Then the principal motioned for the students to be quiet, and they shifted their bodies into a comfortable position. The guest speaker was introduced and everyone clapped. Then the little boy squeezed his eyes shut, and turned his head around the room.

He wanted to feel what it would be like to have no sight.

Not 10 feet away stood a young man who has never seen a face, a child, a school gym. Born without retinas almost 24 years ago, Donovan Tildesley has never known light or shadows. He has lived in darkness all his life. But as all the students and their teachers could tell, Tildesley does not let the lack of sight block his path.

Bolstered by parents who insisted on exposing their first child to all the activities sighted children enjoy, Tildesley quickly found himself liking one activity in particular: swimming. And it wasn’t long before the splashing around in the neighbourhood pool turned a water baby into a world champion.

“I was in the water at six months old, bobbing up and down,” he said.

By eight or nine, he would be in the pool at least twice a week. Then one day, his father challenged him to a race from one end of the 25-metre pool to the other.

Tildesley knew that there was no way he could beat his Dad, but he gave it a shot anyway, and the competitive streak in him was ignited.

The Belmont students sat riveted as the affable Tildesley told them that he had just graduated from the University of B.C. with a degree in English literature and with that behind him, is focusing his energy on competing at the Paralympic Games in Beijing.

He explained that the Paralympics is a competition for the best disabled athletes. He was only 16 when he won a bronze medal in the 200 individual medley at the Games in Sydney. He won five golds at the 2002 World Championships, two silver and a bronze at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens. His haul continued last year when he won five gold medals at the 2007 Para-Pan American Games.

Along the way, he discovered that swimming is a contact sport, especially for swimmers who can’t see.

He showed the children a tapper. Resembling a giant Q-tip, a tapper is a cane with a foot-long Styrofoam tip which someone at the edge of the pool will tap against his head to let him know he is half a stroke away from the pool wall.

Sometimes, the tap misses, sending Tildesley crashing head-first into the concrete.

“When you are blind, swimming is a contact sport,” he said.

In an interview before his presentation, he said he is as excited about going to China as he was going to Greece four years ago, with a small exception.

“This time I’m quite pumped,” he said. “This is my last Paralympics and I want to do the best I can and swim my heart out. I want to enjoy the moment and go out on a high note.”

His main event is the 400m freestyle and, he told the students, he enjoys the backstroke, the butterfly is more challenging, and he likes breaststroke the least.

“How do you swim when you can’t see,” asked Grade 4 student Emily Roberts.

“It’s all about feel,” Tildesley said, adding that he knows if he is swimming off course.

Does losing one sense heighten the others? No, Tildesley replied, but he learned to use his other senses more wisely.

For Emily, listening to Tildesley was inspirational. Partially sighted herself, Emily said hearing Tildesley was “amazing.”

As the students filed back to class, Emily stayed behind to talk to him.

They talked about siblings, horseback riding and riding tricycles. She left with the encouraging message with which he ended his presentation: “If you think you can or can’t you are right.”

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