edited from an e-mail Kyle sent to friends & family afar

Aug 8, 2004

Hey Everyone,

I am finally here! I am at my second Olympic Games and
I am so happy to be in Athens.

It is really hard to explain the emotion and feelings
of excitement that an athlete experiences when they
first arrive at the Olympic Games. You get to the
airport and even the walkways from the airplane have
the words "ATHENS 2004" written on them. You see
volunteers everywhere. You ride on the bus from the
airport to the village and everywhere you look are
billboards advertising the sponsors of the games. It
is definitely hard to avoid Olympic fever in Athens,
but I wouldn't have it any other way. I love the
excitement. I almost felt as if I was a kid in a candy
store, my eyes open wide with anticipation for what I
would see next. So many memories are going to be
created here, but one of my fondest will be the
initial reaction that I had when I arrived in the
Olympic city. It made me feel awesome and I think that
it set a great tone for this next 3 weeks.

When we arrived at the village there were a few things
that we had to do. First, we had to get our athlete
accreditations. These are basically your pass into
everything. Without this valuable piece of laminated
paper I wouldn't be able to eat, sleep or train. They
said that you should only take it off when you shower
and sleep. I think I just might keep it on all night
so that I don't forget where it is in the morning!

After the accreditation we got our rooms. The entire
Canadian team is staying in Section B of the village.
I am not too sure how many sections there actually are
in this place, but I do know that more than 16,000
people will be living here until the end of August and
Canada has roughly 500 of them. It takes about 15
minutes to walk from one end to the other. Anyways, I
am rooming with Sasha Jeltkov, but this was predicted
because we always room together and it works really
well. We are on the top floor of our building, the 3rd
floor, and our floor has 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a
living room. It is comfy, but the rush for the shower
in the morning is a little hectic.

Last night, after we got our rooms, we went and ate.
WOW! The dining hall is amazing. There are so many
options and I want to try them all. There is also
McDonald's which could be very dangerous. I treated
myself to a cheeseburger today, but I promised myself
that I wouldn't overindulge until the competition is
over. That is a very hard thing to do though because
everything is free!!! And many of you know how much I
love free stuff...haha.

After dinner we went back to our rooms and our team
leader brought us all our FREE cell phones. How sweet
is that. We have to give them back at the end of the
games, but Bell Canada donated 500 free minutes to us
all for the duration of the games.

Anyways, after all of this excitement it was time for
bed. Yeah right...sleep...I was too excited.

This morning we got up and trained at 10-11:30. We
just did a run and stretch and some conditioning
exercises. It was already really hot and humid outside
at 10 when we were running. I can't help but feel
sorry for the track athletes!

After our training session we had another very
memorable experience. We got our ROOTS clothing
package. We got shorts and pants, shirts and jackets,
sandals and socks. We got a lot of cool stuff. We also
got a suitcase, backpack and stadium bag. Everything
is available at the ROOTS stores, except for one
t-shirt, if you want to check it out. We tried
everything on to make sure it fit and there is
actually a tailor on hand to make alterations. All of
my stuff was way too big, but luckily they had some
smaller sizes. We also got a free digital camera in
our package and a McDonald's Stepometer...I have taken
about 4000 steps today!

We had an afternoon training session also. We had to
do one routine in this training. Everyone on the team
had an awesome day. I hit all of my routines and I
felt like I had energy to spare. I loved the equipment
and the atmosphere of the gym. We were training in one
of the "training" gyms, but tomorrow we get to train
in the actual competition gym. That is going to be so
great to be able to get a feeling for the actual venue
and equipment. I have dreamt about it many times in
the past 4 years so I hope that it is everything that
I have imagined. I am sure it will be.

So now I am sitting here at the Internet place (where
there are about 150 computers) writing you all about
the excitement that I have had so far. Now that we
have received most of our clothing and other stuff it
is time to focus on the competition. That is what I am
here for.

I had a very good training camp in Madrid, Spain and I
am ready for the competition. I have come to the point
where I don't want to train anymore, I want to compete
and show everyone what I can do. I have worked hard. I
have overcome many obstacles. I have goals that I am
going to accomplish here and I can't wait to get
going. We compete on Saturday, August 14th and it
can't come soon enough. I am ready.


It has been great to hear from some of you and please
keep those emails coming. They are a great sense of
comfort and inspiration.

I hope everyone and everything is good and I will most
definitely be sending out another detailed email soon.


Love Kyle.