HEROES TOUR: Olympians visit schools,
When a volleyball star visits school, Band-aids are on the agenda
At Kensington Community School, Olympian Joshua Binstock was grilled by elementary students on his personal cellphone storage habits, his nerves, and his Band-Aid usage.
Binstock, who represented Canada at beach volleyball, was one of 200 Olympic and Paralympic athletes touring Toronto on Thursday as part of the “Canadian Olympic heroes” tour that saw athletes visiting schools, hospitals and other locales to see the people who cheered them on during the Olympics. On Friday, the athletes will parade down Bay St. just before noon.
Wearing red Olympic gear and towering over nearly everybody in the room at six-foot-five, Binstock told the enraptured crowd in the library how he played beach volleyball in front of Buckingham Palace as 15,000 people cheered against him. He and his teammate beat the hometown British squad.
“Why does your partner have one bare foot and one sock?” one student asked after the group watched a video of Binstock and Martin Reader.
“At the beginning of the season, he hurt his toe pretty badly. He has to wear the sock so his toe won’t be separated from his other toes,” Binstock explained.
The students were also curious about Reader’s headband. Binstock told them it kept the sweat at bay and was also stylish. “You gotta have style,” he told the120 students. “Where does Josh keep his phone?” a kindergarten pupil asked, referring to Binstock in the third person.
“Do you keep it in your pocket?” principal Jennifer Wilton offered.
“I do,” said a smiling Binstock. (The students would later learn that he doesn’t have it in his pockets during matches.)
“Do you ever need Band-Aids?” came the next voice.
“One time I hurt my finger and put a Band-Aid on. It helped,” he said.
“Do you ever get nervous?” someone asked.
For sure, he said. “Don’t be afraid to be nervous. It means that you care.”
Binstock, a 31-year-old chiropractor from Richmond Hill, told the student that he didn’t even know about volleyball when he was their age, and “it’s never too late to do something that you love.”
When he told the students he was looking forward to a rematch with Brazil at the next Olympics, one student yelled, “You show them who’s boss!”
Wilton said it really was one of “those moments as an educator when you feel like it’s the best job in the world, when kids are so inspired and happy.”
Kensington Community School is affected by the ongoing labour unrest — the school’s cross-country team is “on hold” — but that did not have any effect on Thursday’s festivities.
The Olympic and Paralympic tour of Toronto is equal parts class reunion and class trip for the athletes, a chance to catch up and share stories.
The packed day started at the Mattamy Athletic Centre with a breakfast with 100 students who were eager to meet the athletes and load up on doughnuts. Beatrice Gesmundo, 10, from Our Lady of Lourdes School, felt lucky to be eating sausage and ham alongside triathlete Paula Findlay and cyclist Jasmin Glaesser. “You guys want to see something cool?” Glaesser asked the kids at her table as she reached into her tote and pulled out her bronze medal from the 3,000-metre team velodrome event. It was slightly tangled with some headphones. “It’s so heavy,” Gesmundo said. The athletes also visited hospitals, Ronald McDonald House, Queen’s Park and the University of Toronto.