The Universiade was big, it was huge and it was far from here. We flew over Russia and landed in Hong Kong on 11th of August. The flight went well and I even got to visit the pilot's office as the captain was my friend's, Illi's, father. It was so cool, thanks Matti! The organizer had made the custom issues easy for us and we were soon arriving in the athlete village. It was all good, despite me lacking my bike and two other guys lacking their poles.
After some 15+ hours travelling we got the room keys and I settled in with two archers. The funny detail in the apartments was that they had the toilet and shower on the balcony. We were told that the architect had forgotten them from the drawings. Anything can happen. After a good night sleep it was time to start gettin familiar with the heat and the surroundings. Afterall, organizers took care of the bike and it arrived the village as we were in the opening ceremonies.
The opening ceremony was overwhelming. I have no words really to describe it. Colourful, big, cheerful – everything. They opened the stadium wall and we walked with other teams into a packed stadium with 13.000 spectators. Just hours earlier I figured out how big the Universiade was: all athletes were transported to the ceremonies in buses escorted by police cars on cleared and closed highways. Wows!
After three days of training it was racing time. We started at 8.30am and I was in the middle of the race. I went on too quickly and died a little bit. Finishing with 4.50,231 was enough for 12th place which at the end wasn't too bad. I lacked only tenths from my PB, as many people lacked many seconds. The heat played big – we had tad over 50 celcius degrees in our warm-up area and in the sunshine the temperature reached sixties. I had slight troubles with breathing during the race, but still the ride wasn't a bad one. On that day I still had the sprints left. At the time of the qualification I was white and felt very much uncomfortable. A bad ride, but qualified. I clearly didn't make it easy for myself, hahaha. On the first round I faced Miao Zhang, and he took it quite easily with the last 200 meters being 10.9s. On the repechage I got the place three and went from the whistle. It lasted until 650m when the guys caught me and the second one passed me. Korean won, I was second and the Japanese was third, which meant that my sprint was over. If it had been one-on-one repechage I would have won, but it wasn't and I was out. Still to say that it was the ride that got most cheers from the spectators.
After two days of resting I had the Keirin, which was just a bonus race for me as it fitted the program. The big guys are bigger than I am and I had no chance in my first international Keirin. They went when they wanted and I cried in their wheels. It was more about some more track time than trying to really do the impossible.
My races were now over. I can't complain on the results. They were a good standard in big races in a hot weather. My main race went almost as planned, but I was surprised by the heat. The sprints and keirin were good experiences for me. I'm happy how I coped.
The rest of the days were cheering for other Finns, shopping and enjoying!
Now I'm happily jetlagged in Finland!
No comments:
Post a Comment