Lion effort in Athens

By Jarrod Potter
WILLIAM Caldwell returned home with a gold medal from the recent Special Olympics in Athens.
Caldwell, 23, from Berwick, won gold in doubles tennis – and he also pocketed a bronze in the singles.
Caldwell, who has autism, began playing competitive tennis in 2007 with the goal of representing Australia.
His doubles campaign consisted of two competition games he and doubles partner Mitchell James won comfortably.
The first doubles match was a 4-0, 4-1 victory over Great Britain pair Michael Clarke and Shain Lewis, before they won the gold medal match against Sayed Hamdy Ahmed and Mostafa Mahmoud Ahmed from Egypt.
The doubles win was even more impressive as Caldwell and James had only just been put together as a doubles team.
“We had a bit of a training camp back in October to see how we were going,” Caldwell said.
“That was our only time to get a bit of a hit-up before the World Games.
“The coach put me with Mitchell because he is a pretty hard server, and I love playing the net when I’m playing doubles.”
In his singles tennis campaign, Caldwell lost against Barries Westphal from the Netherlands, in a semi-final, before winning his bronze medal match against Mohssine Lahzat of Morocco.
“The singles I played in ‘divisioning’ matches, which is like qualifying for different athletes with different abilities,” Caldwell said.
“Then in the semi-finals, I was against a player from the Netherlands and lost in two sets. In the bronze medal match against a player from Morocco I won 4-1, 4-0.”
When not playing tennis, Caldwell is an umpire for the South East Juniors, a position he loves since taking it up in 2005.
“I’ve been umpiring since 2005, I did a few years of goal umpiring through a special school I used to go to,” Caldwell said.
“It was about late 2004 when someone suggested to me to take up umpiring through an association.
“I got a few contacts with some umpiring associations and since then have never looked back.”
Caldwell is a passionate boundary umpire and favours running the lines rather than going through the middle as a field umpire.
“I prefer being a boundary umpire, because I’m quite comfortable doing the role. I’m pretty happy with that,” he said.
Caldwell is now completing a pre-vocational program in Oakleigh and plans to become a fitness instructor.