Graham Condon, QSM: working for his fellows

Press, 30 June 1982, Page 25

Graham Condon, QSM: working for his fellows

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TIM DUNBAR

For Now Zealand's bestknown male paraplegic athlete. making the Queen's Birthday Honours List was definitely a highhlight in his career. "It's in line with meeting the Pope.” says Graham Condon.

Dropping in at the Vatican is no fanciful dream on Condon's part, by the way. He and four other New Zealanders met Pope John Paul while competing by invitation (with all expenses paid) at an international meeting in Rome just over a vear ago.

The 33-year-old Canterbury man. who contracted polio at the age of four and had to be pushed to primary school on a tricycle by an older brother, never’ expected to be Graham Condon. Q.S.M.

Condon received a letter some time ago telling him of the nomination, but the fact of his Queen's Service Medal only hit home on the receipt of a telegram the evening before the official announcement. .

“I was really thrilled.” said Condon. “It's something I can't win: it’s something

bestowed on you. It's really quite an honour." "The response was amazing. I got letters and congratulations from Auckland to Bluff and messages from MPs and the Prime Minister were among them." Condon's long and remarkably successful career in paraplegic sport began back in 1967. He has attended four Olympics, won about 32 medals in international competition. and holds something like seven New Zealand records. four Fespic (Pacific region) records, one Olympic record of 26.72 m in the discus, and has a world record pending in the pentathlon.

And that barrel-chested man with a beard in the wheelchair has been a familiar figure for years at dozens of fun runs in Christchurch. from easy distances around 10km right up to the rather more demanding 42km. Condon contested ■ the recent Nike marathon and. although finding the conditions very cold, finished in a most respectable 2h 37min for fortieth place over all. But it seems the award

had nothing to do with his sporting career. “The citation says it was for’community service, and doing sport is’not reallv that."

Instead, he has been recognised for the rehabilitation work he has done with other paraplegics over the years.

"You often wonder if the amount of work you put in is beneficial... it's hard to put a gauge on it. This shows that I am heading in the right direction."

Condon's involvement is with "the new paras" who want to do sport. "That makes them concentrate on something more than their disability. It's very good to get people out of themselves, as well as increase their mobility." Sometimes the rehabilita-

lion of Canterbury paraplegics is almost too successful. They apparently become so outward-going that they join able-bodied clubs, thus weakening the paraplegic ones!

Rehabilitation has never been much of a problem for Condon himself, who said he had been very fortunate to have started sport when he did. at the age of 18.

Life is a fairly normal one for Condon who works fulltime as a welder in a cycle factory, is married, to Kathy, a nurse, and has two children. Craig (aged nearly 10) and Andrea (aged a 1?).

And like a lot of other New Zealanders he belongs to a fair few committees. As well as the ones directly associated with paraplegic sport. Condon is on the sports science committee for the

proposed national training centre at Queen Elizabeth II Park and is president of the Canterbury Amateur Weightlifting Association. He holds a national weightlifting referee's badge.

More out of the ordinary is the training schedule Condon is putting in — about 180 km a week — as he prepares for the Far East and South Pacific Games in Hong Kong from October-November.

Those games, though. Condon admits, are something of a "temporary inconvenience." and are being used as a stepping stone to his main goal, the 1984 Olympics for the disabled in South Carolina.

That would be the fifth Olympics for Condon, already a veteran of Tel Aviv (1968). Heidelberg (1972). Toronto (1976). and Arnhem (1980).

At present. Condon is seeded the world's No. 1 tn both the discus and the pentathlon and he is keen to defend his Olympic title in the former event at South Carolina. Internationally, the competition is getting tougher

and Condon knows he will hate to "keep pushing myself" to stay one step ahead. But he feels he does have a good show of making the next Olympics - "I can t see how they can keep me out."

"A lot of hammer throwers and discus throwers have their best years at 34 . 35. or 36. It's more of a strength thing." Condon said. Racing a wheelchair on the track was similar to rowing in that "you've got to move an object." according to Condon. Wheelchair marathons are "fun things" for Condon and he says he is really a 1500 m and 800 m man with neither the shorter nor longer events suiting him. Still, what he referred to as "brute strength and ignorance" have brought success in 5000 m races, on occasions, and he has to get that chair motoring along pretty quickly over 200 m. too. because that event is part of the pentathlon. And one remaining thing he would dearly love to do is race in the annual Honolulu marathon. “It's a verv. verv

fast chair marathon and some do 55km h coming off the hills. It would be a very exciting thing to do." Condon said that because the wheelchairs sometimes career back down hills and tangle with runners they had now been banned from competing at the same time. Instead, the chair marathon is held a week earlier.

The popular Canterbury man says that a "hell of a lot of funny things have happened" in a career spanning eight international competitions. "You have to have a lighthearted attitude. Everyone has to be able to laugh at themselves.

"It's always amusing and funny being' on an aeroplane." Condon said. “We're usually on the plane before anyone else and it's very restricting getting to the toilet. People say ’Look at that drunk crawling along the aisle' and stand on your fingers." At the Olympics, however, some quite nasty accidents can happen. Blind athletes, for example, can lose their callers and disappear into the crowd.