A 17th in Shanghai World Tour
Well our first World Tour Event of 2009 is done and dusted!!
A 17th is a good result for us in terms of our goal of qualifying for world champs at the end of June, but we were a little disappointed with our last game especially.
Ironically, we played the two teams we had been training with in our pre-season, Germany and Australia. The German team is a very tidy team and went into the tournament ranked 3rd, so losing to them was not as painful as loosing to the Aussies! We didn’t have a very good game, although the first set was VERY close and they won it from me being honest about a touch on the block – an athlete’s ethical dilemma! The second set was not so good. Consistency is still the key for us. They did however go on to come 7th, so they played a very good tournament.
China is not my favorite place to go. It is always a challenge finding food there. We did have a night where we ate ‘locally’ and after trying what we thought was chicken, which was actually chicken in the end only it was deep fried chicken knuckles!!! We decided to stick with the one restaurant that we know we would like what we ate and then McDonalds and Pizza Hut were pretty standard feeds after competition was over!! Won’t be having that for awhile!
There is now a 2 week break before the next event on Osaka. We could not afford to come home to NZ, so we were very fortunate that close friends of mine, Megan and Warren Lippi-Smith live just out of Osaka. Warren plays rugby in Suzuka for Honda and so we have access to the gym facilities and we are sorting out training venues on the sand – although so far the weather has been rubbish and we have had to do ball trainings in the gym!
It is SO nice to be in a home and staying with friends! Such a nice change from hotels and eating out. They are great cooks, so after China we are in heaven!!
Comments
Money is the root of all evil!!
Sent an email address to Susan via L G team NZ contact but doubt if it ever reached her so you could use my "local knowledge" in helping you manage the European part of the Tour.Yesterday, in a spare minute I looked for flights starting in Hamburg and ending in Moscow taking in the events in Stavanger and Gstaad. Two hours later, after having given up with pretending to be from NZ and accepting the Swissair home page in Italian and the Norwegian Air home page in german, the basic ticket for the direct route cost without extras (eg credit card charges) was Euro 7,595.40 at yesterdays prices for two adults. For that price I could fly six times to China by KLM. I wonder if you have any friendly arrangements with the German or British Feds or use the Airlines offers ( Germanwings-Boomerang club, Tuifly- Bluemiles, Lufthansa-Partner Plus)or most important have a bank account in the Euro zone. Other solutions cannot be written here as I need more information, Maybe adoption is the best solution! Andrew (Persaro have won the first two games in the final of five )
Progress is often in small
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