PORT Macquarie’s Ryley Batt sat down with the Port News during the week and reflected on his Paralympic Games gold medal performance – and what’s happened since.
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He shared an insight into the athlete’s village and what he plans on doing next. He’ll be 31 in 2020, but the Tokyo Olympics loom large.
BEYOND THE PARALYMPIAN
IT has been a little over a month since Ryley Batt and the Australian Steelers claimed back-to-back Paralympic gold medals.
And in that time, Batt has relished the opportunity to return to everyday life and as he put it – live like a normal person again.
Training at the Macquarie Park netball courts has been replaced with packing the four-wheel-drive and doing what every day people do.
Camping has been at the top of the agenda for Batt and he’s also enjoyed spending time with his good mate – and pet dog – Butch.
Having a few beers around a campfire is something he hasn’t become used to.
“To be able to go out for four days camping and not have to worry about telling your coach or anything has been fantastic,” he said.
He’s also spent time waterskiing and motorbike riding and been able to “enjoy the odd dirty meal you could say”.
“It’s fantastic to win a gold medal but it’s actually a bit of a sigh of relief to stop training and let your hair down and go back to life,” he said.
“To be able to sit around a fire and enjoy a few cold beers – nothing stupid – it’s something I need because it’s been many years I’ve been so strict with my diet and no alcohol and just being careful where I go.
“Camping is really good for the mind I think, but just to be able to do things and not worry about sport and what the consequences are going to be the next day at training has been really great and I think I’ve needed that mental break.
He knows come January when he returns to training he won’t be at 100 per cent
“It’s going to be hard to get back into it.”
THE RIO EXPERIENCE
Batt said what the team had achieved over in Rio still hasn’t sunk in.
“It’ll be great to catch up here in Australia and have a big barbecue and celebrate winning such an amazing achievement because we were so tired over there when it happened,” he said.
The 27-year-old has had time to reflect on his fourth Paralympic games experience and shared an insight as to what goes on in the Olympic village.
It isn’t quite what you would expect, even if Batt conceded the wheelchair rugby team were seen as the pranksters of the entire Olympic squad.
“We’re usually the funny bunch of the Paralympic team, we’re always the ones mucking up and making a joke,” Batt said.
One of his teammates found himself on the receiving end of a practical joke when he went to bed early one night.
“We had almost a leash put on us at the start because we played the last five days of the comp so we couldn’t do much before the games,” Batt said.
“But there was one night where one of the guys went to bed and a couple of us were up pretty late having a few beers and we decided to tape his door shut.
“The next day he couldn’t get out of his room because he was taped in.”
It isn’t all fun and games in the athlete’s village.
Batt admitted he rarely saw Rio outside of the village and the stadium in their 14-day stay.
“It’s not what everyone thinks, but it is a beautiful place and I really enjoyed the scenery and the hills and things like that,” he said.
“At times you almost feel like you’re in a jail of some sort where you’re stuck in this compound and you go out, train, come back, recover, have food and then go to bed every day.
“All you see is the stadium and the athlete’s village. Even the food hall is huge, but it gets bland and that becomes a bit annoying after a while.”
Before leaving for Rio, Batt admitted to being scared about the whole experience.
By the end of it the Brazilian people had successfully changed his mind and he enjoyed his time over there.
“I was scared about my family getting hurt over there, to be honest,” he said.
“I was scared about Zika and scared about the number of people they were expecting at the venues.
“I thought the Paralympics was going to be a joke in the eyes of the public over there, but it was absolutely fantastic.”
THE FUTURE
The next major goal for Batt is the world championships in Sydney in 2018 and he wants as much local support down there as possible.
”People will be blown away by how much faster the game is in real life than it is on television,” he said.
“It will be awesome to win the world champs in Australia because I think we’ve got the team to do that.
“Our Rio campaign was only a six or seven out of 10 so I know we’re capable of a lot more, but world champs 2018 would mean we’ll be back-to-back gold medal champs and Paralympic champs.”
He has also set his sights on Tokyo 2020.
“Everyone keeps asking if I’ll go to Tokyo,” he said.
“I’m trying to tell myself no, but I think deep down I can’t say no.
“I’ll be 31 then, still pretty young and will be in my fifth Paralympic games and I love Japanese food.
“I was talking to one of my friends the other day, Kurt Fearnley, and he said he reckons the Paralympic games in 2020 will be like Dragon Ball Z on steroids.”
Another gold at Tokyo could bring the curtain down on his career and what a way it would be to do it.
It’s a bit of a sigh of relief to be able to stop training and let your hair down a bit so to speak.
- Ryley Batt