Round one- Team USA tryouts

On January 15th I woke up early and began my journey to make it to the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games to compete with Team USA women’s wheelchair basketball team. I drove to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, next stop, Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center. I got in late that evening and dropped my sports chair off at the gym and got some good rest before the hectic schedule began.

Thursday Morning, January 16th, we woke up at 5am to complete blood tests for our nutritionist to analyze. From there, we ate breakfast and went straight to the courts to begin testing. Testing consists of shooting (shoot for a minute and make as many shots you can from three different locations), lay-ups (make as many lay-ups you can make in a minute), 3-point shooting, target passing, and different types of speed and agility tests. I completed all the tests feeling really good about my results.

Later that afternoon we hit the weight lifting gym to complete strength testing. We did different max-out tests for our strength and conditioning coach to evaluate our progress since we last saw her in August. We did a max chest press, hanging triceps dips, pull-up hold, and pull-ups. Again, I was very happy with my results as I had shown improvements since the last time I did these tests in August.

After testing, the remainder of our selections camp consisted of 6 hours on court everyday, and a minimum of 4 hours of daily meetings with coaches and USOPC staff. It was both fun and exhausting to be back on the court with some of the ladies I played with in Peru for the ParaPan American Games. I am happy to say that, so far, all the hard word has paid off and I made the first cut for the 2020 Paralympic women’s wheelchair basketball team! I’ll check back in February after the final round of tryouts!