You
You
Competing anywhere is a great honor
the Olympics that is like
the
grandest stage of them all that is
The furthest you can get so if you can hit that level you are
One of the best in the world at what you do
one of the first
That I can remember watching
Was the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. I watched them compete
And I watched them succeed
Being an active child wanting to play sports and wanting to find something that I could do
when I saw that these men and women were doing these sports to
the fullest extent that they can do to their highest capability was amazing and
That inspired me to want to find a sport that I could do successfully and one day
make it to the level that these
athletes were competing at
I
Guess I should give a little bit of a background
I
Was born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus
Basically what happened is at birth
My spine came through the vertebrae and ended up being outside my back
And so as they were putting my spinal cord back into my back
That ended up in a paralysis of both my legs
With that there comes a lot of struggles whether that's accessibility in a store
or school going on sidewalks going through fields
Just trying to keep up with my friends being in a wheelchair. It kind of slows you down
But I've learned how to deal with things like that
I
Was really being in the wheelchair basketball. I was on the provincial team and I wanted to make the Canada games team
There came a time where tryouts came up for Canada games. I
Was out of practice for a couple of months, so I kind of had too long a break where I wasn't able to
train with the team I
Had expectations or that were higher than the results I had seen I
Was not very happy with what I had shown the provincial coaches
And so I found out that I was the best coach in the world
And so I found out that I was not selected to be on the Canada games team
It was extremely difficult
Eventually I came to this decision to choose powerlifting over basketball
Let's go Dylan
I
I work minutes
Having someone who's there to keep you in line and keep you focused on what you need
to do really makes it easier for you to go out and do that.
If I didn't have a trainer like Richard, I don't think that I could go out and train
and achieve the goals I wanted.
Between the age of like 4 and 8 or so, back and forth, I would spend some time with my
mom and spend some time with my dad and that went on until I was about 8 years old.
Eventually the visits became less frequent and I didn't get to go hang out with my dad
for the weekend as often as I wanted, eventually it was every couple weeks, sometimes it was
a longer period of time before I would be able to go to his house again and eventually
it just ended up in me not going to his house at all.
I think at one point I did want to continue to have a relationship with my dad but after
a while of sitting there hoping that he would come back, decided if he's not, so be it,
I don't need him to come back, if he doesn't want to.
I have plenty of other family, I have plenty of friends and they will be there for me,
I don't need someone who chose not to be there, I don't need someone who hasn't shown any
sign of wanting to be there, so if he doesn't want to be there, that's okay.
I know that no matter what I've been through, it doesn't affect where I want to go.
I just want my hard work to pay off and I want it to bring me to the next level and
that next level for me is the Paralympics.
