{"id":2550,"date":"2018-04-05T14:19:04","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T03:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=2550"},"modified":"2018-04-05T14:19:04","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T03:49:04","slug":"book-extract-kieran-modra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2018\/04\/book-extract-kieran-modra\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Extract: Kieran Modra"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kieran Modra: The way I see it<\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Cover of the book<\/p><\/div>\n

What becomes of a country lad who loves daredevil adventure, only to discover that he is slowly losing his sight?<\/p>\n

What courage does it take for him to pursue his dream of becoming an elite athlete representing his country?<\/p>\n

Kieran Modra’s inspiring story tells us about a shy country boy in a city boarding school, an adolescent struggling with his identity as he comes to terms with a disability, and the Australian athlete standing atop a dais as he accepts his gold medal.<\/p>\n

Read an extract of the book below, where Kieran is struggling with authority and resting on a team trip in Avezzano, Italy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For three years in a row the Australian para-cycling squad trained\u00a0in Avezzano, Italy. Avezanno once lay on the shores of Lake Fucino,\u00a0Italy\u2019s largest lake, which was drained in the late 19th century. After\u00a0the land was reclaimed, the city grew and wide fields became available\u00a0for cultivation. The city was destroyed in 1915 by possibly the worst\u00a0earthquake in the history of Italy with 30,000 fatalities.\u00a0Kevin McIntosh remembers the town with affection:<\/p>\n

\n

Avezzano was an outdoor track, a good environment to train\u00a0and we were welcomed every year by the community. The\u00a0mayor and the city council would greet us when we arrived.\u00a0There was always an exchanging of flags and gifts to make it\u00a0official that we were honoured guests of the town. When we\u00a0went into town for an ice cream or coffee, it was often free. It\u00a0was a comfortable environment and there were few complaints,\u00a0although there were always athletes who made it harder for the\u00a0other athletes, and for us as coaches and officials.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Needing time to myself, I enjoyed exploring this area, even without\u00a0permission from the Australian team officials. The only time I\u00a0could do this was on \u2018rest days\u2019. The surrounding mountains are\u00a0steep and beautiful, with pretty walking trails. I found rest days\u00a0hard to handle, so at my first camp there, I decided to get up very\u00a0early and (without telling anyone) take the tandem for a ride by\u00a0myself. I found a mountain road that went almost straight up and\u00a0decided that I needed to get to the top. For at least two hours I rode\u00a0very slowly up the mountain road and after reaching the summit,\u00a0it was time to descend. Realising that if either the bike or the rider\u00a0was damaged in any way there would be big trouble, I took it very\u00a0easy coming down. It was fun riding on the opposite side of the\u00a0road to our Australian way and I was delighted that no one had\u00a0missed the tandem or me when I got back to our hotel.\u00a0The following year I took hiking boots to walk the trails. On\u00a0another rest day, and without telling anyone, I decided to climb a\u00a0different mountain. It took hours to get to the base and I started\u00a0climbing straight up. After four hours I had passed all vegetation\u00a0and had come to an area of only shale and rock. About to give up,\u00a0I saw another climber and followed him to the top, where we rang\u00a0the bell on the summit. From the top we could see a severe storm\u00a0approaching, so to get down quickly my new friend took me down\u00a0the dangerous shale side, where we ran and slid our way to the\u00a0bottom in about 20 minutes. It was exhilarating, and thankfully\u00a0the friendly climber returned me to our hotel by car. Although very\u00a0sore, I tried not to show it, and being a rest day, I thought my coach\u00a0hadn\u2019t missed me. But the story got out when I showed the video\u00a0that I took of my escapade to \u2018friends\u2019 and the masseurs noticed all\u00a0my scratches and bruises and began asking questions!<\/p>\n

Kieran\u2019s coach <\/i>had missed him:<\/i><\/p>\n

There was a balance in getting Kieran to do what he needed to\u00a0do, and stopping him from doing what he wanted to do. A good\u00a0example is the way Kieran treated the recovery days. These are\u00a0critical and after one recovery day in Italy I went to have a chat.\u00a0It went like this:<\/p>\n

\u2018Kieran \u2026 how was your day off yesterday? I didn\u2019t see you\u00a0around. Did you spend most of it in bed?\u2019<\/p>\n

(After a short pause.) \u2018Yeahhhhh.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Tell me more. I can\u2019t see you staying in bed all day. Did you\u00a0go for a walk?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yeahhhh.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Oh, where did you go? Did you walk into town?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yeah.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Maybe further?\u2019<\/p>\n

(Silence.)<\/p>\n

\u2018Kieran, I know where you went!\u2019<\/p>\n

If ever you get to see the video, it is clear that Kieran didn\u2019t\u00a0slide down the mountain \u2026 more like rolled down it! On the\u00a0video you see the legs going faster and faster \u2026 and then it goes\u00a0sky \u2026 earth \u2026 sky \u2026 earth \u2026 sky \u2026 earth. So we had to have a\u00a0little chat about the recovery process. But at the end of the day\u00a0he always turned up and performed. Kerry was the complete\u00a0opposite. She generally did what we asked her to do \u2026 but she\u00a0couldn\u2019t control Kieran either.<\/p>\n

Join us for the launch of\u00a0Kieran Modra: The way I see it<\/em> on Tuesday April 10 at Lexus of Adelaide<\/a> from 6 pm. RSVP<\/a>\u00a0by April 8 to secure your place at the launch. If you are unable to attend the launch, but would like a copy of the book (RRP $34.95), you can visit us at our Rose street bookshop, or find the book online<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kieran Modra: The way I see it What becomes of a country lad who loves daredevil adventure, only to discover that he is slowly losing his sight? What courage does it take for him to pursue his dream of becoming … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-fun"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-F8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2550"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2555,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2550\/revisions\/2555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}