TULLN, Austria — Sydney Manyan, the captain of the Special Olympics Jamaica (SOJ) floor hockey team, is confident his teammates are acclimatising to the conditions ahead of the start of the World Winter Games here.

Yesterday the players had their second practice session — a 45-minute stint — since arriving in Austria on Tuesday.

Glendon West, Jamaica’s head of delegation, was satisfied with the lively first session at a nearby gymnasium on Tuesday, but Manyan believes yesterday’s outing at the same venue was even better.

The skipper, entering his fourth Winter Games, noted that the cold 10-degrees Celsius temperature in Tulln over the past two days, and the quick surface of the floor hockey court at the gymnasium, were aspects that the players had to get accustomed to.

“It went alright today… the first day we trained; because of the climate, some persons were not at their best, but this morning they adjusted a little. We made sure we exercised and stretched properly and then we went into game situations,” he told the Jamaica Observer from the delegation’s base at Junges Hotel in Tulln.

“We went through some drills and it went very, very well. We feel good going into the Games, because the only other issue we had was with the [faster] surface — some of them [the players] are not used to this. But like how we have trained, the confidence is up and the next thing is that we may get a training session at the official court, so that can boost things even more for us,” he said, referring to the floor hockey host venue in Graz.

The speed skating team has not been able to train here in Tulln because the outdoor ice rink has lost its solidity due to temperatures here that have not been cold enough. Those athletes are expected to practise when the Jamaican contingent shifts location to Graz today.

Action at these Games is scheduled to commence after Saturday’s opening ceremony in Schladming.

After yesterday’s practice, the SOJ delegation visited the Spanish horse- riding school in Heldenberg. The Jamaican athletes and management staff were allowed exclusive interaction with specially bred show or dance horses called Lipizzaners.

They were later taken to a car museum to view fascinating, pristine-conditioned antique automobiles dating back to the mid-20th century, and even some going as far back as the late 19th century.

To complete the day of exposure to the local culture in the Austrian countryside, they had local cuisine for dinner at Gasthof Zum Lustigen Bauern in Zeiselmauer.