Jesse from Italy - JP
22/05/09 09:37
The first two weeks of the tour have gone by so quickly, it is strange to think we have already paddled world cup 1 and have 10 days training under our belt. i paddled the k1 1000m in Racice (pronounced ra-chit-say) with a semifinal effort, missing out on the B Final by a few seconds.
The first two weeks of the tour have gone by so quickly, it is strange to think we have already paddled world cup 1 and have 10 days training under our belt. i paddled the k1 1000m in Racice (pronounced ra-chit-say) with a semifinal effort, missing out on the B Final by a few seconds. Considering i had barely been on the water for the fortnight leading into racing - throw in a little jetlag and hospital bed sores, hehehe - and i wasnt that unhappy with the effort. The weather in Racice was poor for the first 2 days as we didnt see the sun and it was mostly cloudy with some patches of rain but come race day the sun came out and with intermittent tailwinds conditions were favourable.
We enjoyed the company of many Olympic medallists, including Adam van Koeverden, the Belarussian K4 Champions, and of course our very own Ken-garoo Wallace. The Aus Team were easy to find with our green and yellow tracksuits, and we were always quite fond of the food hall, where we all eat breakfast, lunch and dinner - with the rest of the athletes and coaches. One evening after racing (Saturday), the Australian K5 (R Baker, C Alston, C Alagich, M Urquhart and me) played a couple of games of ten pin bowling. We shared the veneer with the US Team with the Aussies taking a small lead in the first half, the US bringing their national sport expertise to take out the second half and the game. After watching the last day of racing on Sunday we had an early departure for Praha (Prague) to fly to Milan, Italy. The flight was around 70 minutes and we arrived quite fresh around 9am before taking a 5-star coach to our accommodation at the lake side town of Ternate, just outside Varese. We have shared rooms, i am bunking with Chadly Alston, and we eat like kings under the culinary knife of Europa - a local restaurant of very high quality. Europa serve us lunch and dinner at the hotel, so we only have to take the lift down for our wonderful meal twice a day. In saying that we have truly come to need these great meals considering how much we have been training (4 sessions per day, most days). We look forward to our meals like we look forward to our sleep, but life is great, training on our very own lake each morning and crunching gym out 3 afternoons a week, plus cross training on MTBs in the forest tracks around the lakes. We have certainly been making the most of being in this part of world visiting Milano on Sunday and watching part of the Giro d'Italia and getting up close and personal with Lance Armstrong - i got a great photo of him in the pack. We are heading off to do a pool recovery session in a town called Gavirate now.
Will keep the news coming...
We enjoyed the company of many Olympic medallists, including Adam van Koeverden, the Belarussian K4 Champions, and of course our very own Ken-garoo Wallace. The Aus Team were easy to find with our green and yellow tracksuits, and we were always quite fond of the food hall, where we all eat breakfast, lunch and dinner - with the rest of the athletes and coaches. One evening after racing (Saturday), the Australian K5 (R Baker, C Alston, C Alagich, M Urquhart and me) played a couple of games of ten pin bowling. We shared the veneer with the US Team with the Aussies taking a small lead in the first half, the US bringing their national sport expertise to take out the second half and the game. After watching the last day of racing on Sunday we had an early departure for Praha (Prague) to fly to Milan, Italy. The flight was around 70 minutes and we arrived quite fresh around 9am before taking a 5-star coach to our accommodation at the lake side town of Ternate, just outside Varese. We have shared rooms, i am bunking with Chadly Alston, and we eat like kings under the culinary knife of Europa - a local restaurant of very high quality. Europa serve us lunch and dinner at the hotel, so we only have to take the lift down for our wonderful meal twice a day. In saying that we have truly come to need these great meals considering how much we have been training (4 sessions per day, most days). We look forward to our meals like we look forward to our sleep, but life is great, training on our very own lake each morning and crunching gym out 3 afternoons a week, plus cross training on MTBs in the forest tracks around the lakes. We have certainly been making the most of being in this part of world visiting Milano on Sunday and watching part of the Giro d'Italia and getting up close and personal with Lance Armstrong - i got a great photo of him in the pack. We are heading off to do a pool recovery session in a town called Gavirate now.
Will keep the news coming...