Tadhg Slattery on swimming competition accessibility
Callie Frye, Daily Moth Reporter: When I took pictures and videos covering swimming events for the United States of America Deaf Sports Federation (USADSF) in Brazil, I met a gentleman named Tadhg Slattery. We had an interesting conversation and I was blown away when he shared about his swimming background. He was a great swimmer and had an impressive swimming career!
He competed as part of the South African swimming team at six Paralympic Games. He swam mainly in the category SB5 events and won two gold, three silver and one bronze medals.
I asked him a couple of questions about the objects I observed at the swimming pool - some are accessibility tools and the others are common in swimming. He taught me a few things about swimming and check out his explanations!
Tadhg Slattery: Do you see flashing lights on the block?
(Image of a device with red, yellow, and green lights)
The block has red, yellow and green flashing lights. It is a starting signal for swimmers. The red means getting on the blocks, for yellow - the hands grip the blocks, and green is to dive underwater. See the hanging flags?
(Image showing a series of flags and banners hanging from a rope near the pool’s ceiling)
They are specifically designed for backstrokers. Why? The hanging flags enable backstrokers to count their strokes one, two, three, four from the mark to the wall. If not for them, swimmers would hit their heads against the wall and get hurt.
The other line…
(Image of a rope above the middle of a pool, suspended by metal poles on either side, with a large metal washer tied to it)
…if the flashing light didn’t signal anything and I dived in the water, the rope would be dropped and then stop me from going further. It stops swimmers who were unaware of a false start, missed a dive or had an error in the starting phase. If the first recall rope didn’t get dropped in the water by time to stop swimmers, there is another rope on the other side of the pool. They are to get the attention of swimmers to prevent them from exerting unnecessary energy in the case of a false start. When it happens, they will take a break for a bit before swimming again.
(Image and short video showing a pool with all the three accessibility items discussed above)
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Frye: Slattery is now retired from international swimming and is now a full-time swimming coach for disabled athletes in Johannesburg, South Africa. Thank you for teaching us some things about swimming!