| Robin
Bell Reports from Beijing |
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>Canoeing in Western Australia
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Beijing
The Olympics are upon us. The Aussie team is gathering in a few hours for the opening ceremony, to be lead by our fearless flag bearer James Tomkins. Last night we had the team function where we met the PM, some Royalty and a few other namely guests. I had a good chat to Johnny Howard after he was loitering there a little too long. Training is starting to pick up. I had a tough first 5 days. Waking up with what felt like a small hangover. Its been that long since I have had a beer I would be only guessing at this. The heat and travel has knocked most people around. I have been the hottest I have ever been on the water. The sun heats up the smog and the humid pressure cooker begins. We have been using ice vests and gatorade slushies trying to cool down and recover after sessions. The biggest problem is trying to freeze these over night. Seems hit and miss, with 50 rowing and 15 canoeing ice vests lumped together. The whitewater here is very tough. You have to fight for every inch of the course. Its a raging war between you and the water. You have to adapt very quickly to the water around you the entire run. Most courses have small sections that are tough, but here its constant from top to bottom. The rowing, sprint canoeing and Slalom Canoeing course in about 50 minutes by bus. They gave us the hardest buses to sit on, complaints by nations have fallen on deaf ears with the Chinese. We have seen about 6 major accidents on the highways between the slalom team members. The buses just maneuver between the debris and carry on. The incident is cleaned up very rapidly with a saturation of police and volunteers. The volunteers march in formation a little too well. I am not sure how many actually volunteered. So far it has been a fantastic time. The slalom team got quite a lot of media when we arrived. I had to do a press conference with a few sprint paddlers Clint Robinson and Hannah Davis from the ladies K4. It was amusing talking about the water quality and other issues, then been taken out of context the next day in the newspapers. From here, I will be attending the opening ceremony. Hopefully in bed before midnight. Training short sprints tomorrow afternoon and boat scrutnieering, last session on the water. Sunday is course construction and demonstration day. Monday qualifying racing starts at 3pm second runs 2 hours later. Tuesday same time but so much more on the line. Cheers Rob |
>Canoeing in Western Australia
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