After a long night of putting the finishing touches on a few bits of gear etc and the tedious business of actually flying here through Milan, the Turkish squad has arrived in Bari this morning Thursday the 26th of July.

On the flight and connection in Milan several groups of mainly blonde people joined the flight, in varying states of uniform or casual dress ranging from bizarre loose lycra tracksuits in hideous colours to men clad in nothing but gym singlets and tight stretchy shorts... as we came off the flight into Bari and waited for our luggage and all the Monofin bags started to be picked up off the conveyors, our suspicions were confirmed... the Russians had arrived. ...And the Ukrainians and the Polish and a few others to boot.

That was a deviation from the normal WC scene for me, but more so was the cameraman and journo/reporter type who were creeping around the area behind passport control to document the athletes arriving. These guys did a few brief interviews with players while they were waiting for their bags and gave the comp something of an official flavour right from the word go.

When we came out with our bags we were loosely grouped by Games officials who rounded up everyone until all the players had arrived and then herded us onto coaches which ferryed us to the accommodation. That treatment was for the teams and athletes staying at the official accommodation which is a university dorm, i can't say what the arrangements were/are for the many teams organising their own beds but while slow, the organisation was efficient.

At the dorms lines formed at 3-4 admin desks while team managers doled out passports to the officials for recording of names and allocation of rooms and keys. Once finished everyone was admitted into the lunchroom which has a large catered buffet, basically what you'd expect of a dorm canteen. ...the ritz it is not but i know there are millions of starving kids somewhere who would kill for what goes on the trays there so it's not my place to complain. Highlights include a finswimming squad from Venezuela, a few Chinese, Ukrainians and just basically tonnes of strangers here for fin-swimming. At this stage uwh is a solid minority.

Player packs were handed out to each player which consisted of a wee bag with a tonne of crap tourist brochures about Bari and a tourney polo shirt. Missing from the pack was a program with any kind of schedule unfortunately. Here's where some negativity creeps in...

I asked about a program and was told nothing was set yet. and now for a little background...

over the last few days some concerned uwh players and management (largely driven by the french and organised by Romain the fantastic Belgian who has stepped into a co-ordination role) have taken it upon themselves to draft a decent draw and arrange warmup pool schedules for the teams in the absence of anything from the tourney organisers in these areas (and apparently after months of hounding by the french to no effect)

Laurent (a frenchman) has drafted and re-drafted a draw 4-5 times (very time-consuming for those that have experience in this area) to try to come up with a program which allows a double round robin for each grade... this is because the proposed draw from weeks ago was single round robin and after serbia bailed in both divisions a few days ago we are now left with 6 mens teams and 4 womens. It's been a challenge as the french booked their flights as late as possible at the tourney organisers direction and then the draw was moved up a day, catching them out. (even though they were "stick a needle in my eye and die if i lie" style promised that the schedule wouldn't move)... to be honest personally i think they were idiots to book so late and think they could waltz in without any training games or anything... it's hardly showing respect to the tournament or the opposition is it, but apparently the cost is very high for the french and they had to try to save money on accommodation. whatever the reason...

In the end something has just now been finished by Laurent which has approval of all the countries bar spain (awaiting a reply at this point, Romain has gone to a lot of trouble to try to keep all informed and behind the proposal in order to present a united front to CMAS at the meeting where it's proposed)...

This draw allows for france turning up late and extends the comp partially into the last scheduled training day to prevent 3 game days where possible. anyway, it's all provisional upon the cmas honchos agreeing to follow it at the meeting tomorrow morning anyway, so we'll see how that goes. i've been roped in a bit as well and have just finished putting together a rough schedule for the training day slots, which hadn't been done by the organisers... they did give us pool time but without Romain to nudge them along i think we would have had to ad-lib it on the first warmup day and probably would have wasted a lot of time there. anyway.

the pool is a fair way away from the dorms here, but it seems like we have buses on hand full-time, i believe they are going to be taking people to the venues every day... possibly this means teams spending full days at the pool as i can't see the coaches ferrying individual teams home but again it'll become apparent.

there's wireless internet here, on this floor at least after i re-started the wee server in the common room... the rooms are quite good, popular pastime seems to be hanging over the balconeys and yelling or perving at others who do the same... big dorm block with 3 wings about 6 stories high? good value, i see waterbombs coming into their own at some stage. the officials all look the real deal, bari logos in print on everything and wee bags and whatnot as well as poloshirts etc... even have big decals on their cars with the logo. will be interesting to see what the venues look like. theres also a big cafe area next to the lunchroom where you can buy crap and snacks all day when they arent serving... flags are up on many of the balconies already too.

it is STINKING hot here.

...biggest weird thing is no program so you cant have a nosey at the ugly mugs of the teams who are about to deal you or receive your pain... but maybe thats coming. the finswimmers have all trooped down to get their photos taken for something... i think i'll go ask a few questions once i've had a nap.

thats all for the first installment, theres a lot of background info here so i guarantee following posts won't be as long or boring...

oh yeah the number of just generally weird looking people we saw at customs in Milan was INSANE. the most beautiful stereotype computer nerds, both different flavours, bumped into each other just ahead of me in the queue, americans, and their conversation was awesome, they belonged in a family guy/simpsons episode. i'm hoping for more of that on this trip.

cheers, liam

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