Day 1: we arrive and finally some information on the competition from organisers
Catching up on some zzz's
The trip to Ourense with all our kayaks and gear went off almost perfectly. I won't bore you with the minor details that wrong so here's what went right.
We got some sort of a monstrosity of a Chrysler as transportation. So far it has been described by various team members as "...one of those vans ye see in de filums dat the SWAT teams jump out of!" (note the Enis accent) and "a fat Americans' car" among others.You press a button on the key and the boot open, you press another button and one of the sliding doors opens and slides all the way back in a very controlled and futuristic manner (until it hits one of the handirack straps when closing again and nearly breaks). This is the kind of feature that would have Jeremy Clarkson doing backflips. The tinted windows only add to the effect.
Anyway, before this blog entry turns into a review of a Crysler, the rental company had told us that none of their cars had roof racks but low and behold what does this car have when we get it only a roof rack. One of those SUV-style for-show-more-than-anything-else jobbies. But the best part was that it was adjustable. We had been a bit wary of how we were going to fit 6 boats on an inflatable handirack but this adjustable roofrack when coupled with the handi rack now provided us with options which opened up whole new dimensions of fitting boats on car roofs.
A work of art: Your standard 4-2 formation
The drive from Ourense took about an hour and a half including a stop off to check on the boats in a small town. Just as well we did cos some major tightening was needed.
Went out for dinner when we had all checked in. We ended up getting back to the accomodation just after 12am. This is something we're going to have to work on in future. Apparently its the way things work out here but we'll see about that.
After checking the old e-mails I found that the organisers have finally given some information regarding the Europeans. They sent on the event poster and the photos which I guess the bulldozer guys were working off to create a feature.
Europeans 2008 Poster
Ourense feature photo1: What the feature should look like for the 2008 European championships.
Ourense feature photo 2
Also the team slots for team training have been handed out and this year we've been paired with France in team training. I had thought the event heats were to begin on Monday but this is not the case. Official team training starts on this day instead with the opening ceremony taking place on Tuesday evening. This is good news for team Ireland as it means more time to prepare for the event. Training with the French team will also be of benefit as they are excellent technicians on the water and we can learn a lot from them. I've attached below the training slots which were allocated for Monday and Tuesday's official team training and also the competition schedule for those who are travelling to Ourense to support us. Also the final of the competition will be on Saturday and not Sunday as we had indicated in the events section of the website previously. Below is the latest schedule of events for the competition.
OFFICIAL TEAM TRAINING ON THE OURENSE WAVE
Monday 21st July
9:00h - 10:00h GER + AUT + SVK + CZE
10:00h - 11:00h SPA + POR + SWE
11:00h - 12:00h FRA + IRL
12:00 - 13:00h GBR + FIN
13:00h - 14:00h NDL + POL + SUI
Tuesday 22nd July
9:00h - 10:00h FRA + IRL
10:00h - 11:00h NDL + POL + SUI
11:00h - 12:00h SPA + POR + SWE
12:00h - 13:00h GER + AUT + SVK + CZE
13:00h - 14:00h GBR + FIN
FREESTYLE EUROPEAN CHAMMPIONSHIPS
COMPETITION SHEDULLE.
23RD - 26TH JULY 2008
Wednesday 23rd July
9:00h K1 Men Senior Prelims Starts Heat1 to Heat 10
12:30h K1 Women Senior Prelims Starts Heat 1 to Heat 4
Thursday 24th July
9:00h OC1 Prelims Starts Heat1
9:20h K1 Women Junior Prelims Starts Heat 1 to Heat 2
10:00h K1 Men Junior Prelims Starts Heat 1 to Heat 6
12:00h C1 Prelims Starts Heat 1 to Heat 2
13:00h Squirt Prelims starts
Friday 25th July
9:00h K1 Men Senior Quarterfinals Starts Heat 1 to Heat 4
10:20h K1 Women Senior Semifinals Starts Heat 1 to Heat 2
11:00h K1 Men Junior Semifinals Starts Heat 1 to Heat 2
11:40h K1 Women Junior Semifinals Starts Heat 1 to Heat 2
12:20h C1 Semifinals Starts Heat 1 to Heat 2
13:00h k1 Men Senior Semifinals Starts
Saturday 26th July
9:00h Squirt Final Start
9:30h OC1 Finals Start
10:00h K1 Women Junior Final Starts
10:30h K1 Men Junior Final Starts
11:00h C1 Final starts
11:30h K1 Women Senior Final Starts
12:00h K1 Men Senior Final Starts
12:45h Medals Ceremony!!!!!!!
One thing which I've noticed is that out of 14 countries who have fielded teams at this years' Europeans, Ireland has the 4th largest team attending. This is a great sign and its a credit to all involved in the sport that we continue to have a strong international representation year-on-year. For your information here are the teams attending and the number of competitors on each team.
1 GBR UK 22
2 GER Germany 19
3 ESP Spain 18
4 IRL Eire 14
5 FRA France 12
6 NDL Holland 10
7 POL Poland 9
8 POR Portugal 6
9 FIN Finland 5
10 SUI Switzerland 5
11 SVK Slovakia 5
12 Czech Rep. 3
13 Sweeden 3
14 AUS Austria 1
Total 132
