Sad songs play a key role for Madi
EYE of the Tiger is out. So are We are the Champions and We Will Rock You.
What Madi de Rozario wants playing in her ears before an important heat or race at the Paralympics is very different.
“I do this thing, I listen to the same song on repeat in my headphones,’’ said the wheelchair racer, who is competing at her third Paralympics from this week.
“I always find something really sad because I find it really calming.’’
The 27-year-old de Rozario said tracks from Paloma Faith or Lana Del Rey were more her speed when preparing for a race but she was yet to choose her music for Tokyo.
“I haven’t fixated on anything just yet,’’ she said.
De Rozario, who is coached by Paralympic great Louise Sauvage, has won multiple world championship titles and Commonwealth Games crowns but a Paralympics gold has eluded her at her past Games in Beijing and Rio.
In Tokyo she has a full card of racing but has identified the 800m as her pet event.
“The 800m is the one I will go into with the highest expectations,’’ said the triple Paralympic silver medallist, who has had a Barbie doll modelled on her.
“I am the current world champion but that means nothing really because I was as well in Rio and didn’t win.’’
For a self-described control freak, the uncertainty of the past year has been driving de Rozario nuts.
It meant her normal routines were thrown out of whack, she had to make constant last-minute changes for repeated lockdowns in Sydney and had almost a twoyear stretch without international events.
It’s also why de Rozario, who had a neurological disorder that caused inflammation of the spinal cord when she was four, has little idea how she will go in Tokyo – or how her major rivals are looking. But the good news for the Sydney racer is she loves training – and she’s been doing plenty of that with nothing but local races since early 2020.
“It’s been great. I have no external commitments and I just train all the time,’’ she said. “But my racing depends on what others do because it is so tactical.
“I usually plan my race, who to watch, how others are going to react but we’ve been sitting down and saying, we don’t know what’s going on. I’m a control freak so it’s been quite challenging. I just have to go with the flow.’’
De Rozario will race the first of her events – the 5000m – on Friday with her final event, the marathon, late in the program.