PARIS (AP) — America girls’s goalball group did not qualify for the Paralympics for the primary time since 1984. However two-time Paralympic medalist Eliana Mason remains to be in Paris.
This time, Mason is sitting within the stands supporting her fiancé, Calahan Younger, the captain of the US’ males’s group.
“She’s placing on her finest face, making an attempt to maintain it collectively,” Younger mentioned. “As a result of she needs that greater than something, she may very well be down right here competing, too.”
Goalball is for athletes with visible impairments. Athletes should put on blackout eyeshades to stage the enjoying subject throughout totally different ranges of imaginative and prescient. Bells contained in the ball allows gamers to listen to it and anticipate its motion.
Mason medaled within the Rio 2016 video games (bronze) and Tokyo in 2021 (silver).
On Friday, as Mason entered the Paris La Protection area to look at Younger and the lads’s group compete in its first match, she was overwhelmed with emotion.
“I wished to start out crying as a result of I’m like, ‘that is the sector,’” Mason mentioned. “It’s occurring, and I’m not competing.”
Mason mentioned her work as a psychological well being counselor has assisted her throughout this expertise. She usually tells shoppers that it’s okay to carry area for 2 separate feelings, and emphasizes the significance of utilizing phrases like “and” as a substitute of “however.”
“Like, it’s actually exhausting for me, ‘and’ I’m so blissful and happy with Calahan,” mentioned Mason.
Mason and Younger first met whereas competing at a goalball match in 2013 after they had been 17 years outdated. They began courting 4 years later after they each moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana to what was then the high-performance middle for the US’ goalball groups.
At this 12 months’s video games, Mason is taking her new position as a fan very significantly. In goalball, spectators are usually not allowed to cheer or make noise throughout gameplay. As a participant herself, she is aware of when to cheer.
“I instructed her that, each time it was quiet, to get one final yell in, so I knew the place she was,” Younger mentioned on Saturday after a 5-4 win towards France. The U.S. captain added that he’s 90% positive he’s pointing at her each time he scores a degree.
America girls have competed in each Paralympic Video games since a girls’s class was added 40 years in the past, and so they boast six medals. This 12 months, qualification was tougher as a result of organizers minimize the variety of groups that might qualify from 10 to eight.
The U.S. girls had three possibilities to qualify throughout three tournaments, and in every competitors, they misplaced by slim margins. After defeat by one level within the gold medal match towards Canada on the 2023 Parapan American Video games, the U.S. misplaced its ultimate probability for the Paralympics.
“I simply keep in mind feeling heartbroken strolling off the court docket and considering, ’we’re not going to Paris,” Mason mentioned.
As the subsequent four-year Paralympic cycle begins, Mason and her teammates have one factor in thoughts.
“We wish to be in L.A., and our aim is to win that gold medal,” Mason mentioned, referencing the 2028 Los Angeles Paralympics. “I say that I’ve a bronze, I’ve a sliver, I’ve a not going. So subsequent step is gold.”
At this 12 months’s Paralympics, the lads’s group can be within the hunt for {hardware}. The final time they stood on the rostrum was at Rio 2016, successful silver. Younger and his teammates have their final match of group play on Sunday towards Iran.
Sunday can be Mason’s birthday. The Paralympic couple deliberate dinner with their household the night time earlier than the match to have a good time early. The following day, she can be again within the stands to look at the U.S. males compete.
“She’s probably the most supportive fiancée you possibly can ever ask for, and she or he’s right here cheering us on,” Younger mentioned.
Gabriella Etienne is a pupil within the undergraduate certificates program within the Carmical Sports activities Media Institute on the College of Georgia.
AP Paralympics: https://apnews.com/hub/paralympic-games