BARI - captains log, stardate: day1

Take a couple solid shots at the walls with a puck and see if it pokes a hole.

My guess is they end up folding or flipping back unless they have some structural support inside that we can't see on your pics.

Other than that, it looks like a good pool in which to play.

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Just in case you weren't sure, it's official -- CMAS sucks.
Oh yeah, and now they're broke.

It look really scary to play on this field, walls will be blow out on the first game, why they're do so silly things like this,

hehe funny stuff! I have to say, coreboard is pretty strong, but not in all directions. How are they attached together? Gaffa tape?

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i [heart] porridge

I think it would likely be a good playing pool. It is 2.5 m deep flat bottom; 25 x 35m or some such - I'd have to look at my notes from last fall - anyway room for 2 playing areas with side subbing from deck - water was flush or almost flush I think with deck. Tiles were rectangular and looked smooth. BUT that damn edge thing.

Due to pool floor sharp slant at edge, I told Bari organizers (last fall) they needed to build a wall all way around about 1.5 m high with water level wall down middle to separate playing areas. Also needed a curtain to separate playing areas or deck ref would not be able to separate refs. When I said build walls in the pool, our hosts eyes got very big. They said, 'put walls in the pool?'

Then I heard somewhere that CMAS was going to rent walls - where I heard it I can't remember, and the source of the wall rental was never known to me. Donato got handed the local organization I believe - I saw him in Rome in May, and he had the 'official' puck.

If anyone tried any puck on that pool bottom, I didn't hear about it. I feel badly: last fall when I was there - but I didn't think to bring a puck, and no one encouraged me to get in and test/evaluate anything.

The pool was build and is used exclusively for water polo. There is a warm up/lap pool just down the hall and across from the very large locker rooms.

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Carol Rose

hmmm i tried that duck, one flick, one gaping hole. but, we are assured that the barriers will be replaced with a stronger material tomorrow. hopefully they have enough time.

today we had the technical meeting where all the draw stuff was discussed... ended up after ages and ages to be...

- women have a double rr then semis then finals
- men have single rr plus seeding game (quarter final with 6 teams, which essentially adds a game before the semis), then semis and finals

sounds easy when you put it down in writing like that. the french women have been accommodated and dont play any games on the first day cos of their flights.

there were a few friendlies played, of those that i saw...

-italy had a strong game against belgium in the mens division, maybe getting the better of the clash but belgium were on their second game in quick succession

-spanish women started with 2 goals against the turks and then the turks gained the upper hand in the remainder of the match and finished strongly

-turkish men played strongly against italy, but again it was italys second game after playing belgium

-turkish men put on a couple of goals more than belgium in their match earlier in the afternoon

captains and refs meeting was held... usual stuff. couple photos attached of the industrious donato and help at the technical meeting and the distinguished mugs of the kiwi coaching delegation.

Attached Images

	organizers.jpg (85.6 KB, 32 views)
	liambenny.jpg (90.8 KB, 57 views)

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it's more polite on the grating than on the subs bench

Keep the news coming Liam, sounds like you'll have a lot of fun even if the hockey isn't run well or if the pool is ****e.

Where are the photos of the finswimmers? I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in comparing the physique of an UWH player to that of a finswimmer!

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Breathing is overrated!

heres one i took on request for an ex-flatmate hockey girl in wellington who i won't name, ANGELA the perve who just wants to see as many semi-naked guys as possible all the time... ok i will do an in-depth photo-perving mission tomorrow at the pool.

the finswimmers go very fast though... 15 seconds or so for a 50m under, a croatian guy was telling me yesterday. long and lean seems to be the bodyshape, but i've seen a couple of guys carrying a tad more weight just like some of our fast guys do


in the hockey, this morning the turkish men won a warmup game against the spanish pretty convincingly but the spanish had a couple of very strong spells and scored a couple of goals back, spanish being especially strong on the walls at times, it obviously being a focus point. could be a good tactic against most of the teams bar france, who i think could take up the challenge quite happily at least for a short while... yikes.

the turkish women played belgium this morning also and had the stronger game... a bit of niggle in this game, once refs and pressure are added tomorrow i have a suspicion we will see the sin-bin come into play a fair bit especially at the start of the tournament. GB veteran Eryl Adams is the Belgian womens coach, and as I left the pool this morning (leaving one of the girls doing her doping test...exciting!) i saw the belgian mens coach Guillaume Watelet (spelling?) turning up to the pool and joining the party. hooray!

in related news, the queues for lunch and dinner at the canteen are starting to get a little ridiculous... more and more competitors have been turning up every day and you can now spend 30 mins in the queue if you're unlucky... and that is definitely sh*te, terrible if you are trying to get food into your players quickly after a hard session. don't know what they'll do about it but i hope they extend the lunch/dinner hours and put on more staff, can't see any other way to speed it up

Attached Images

masturbator.jpg (88.1 KB, 47 views)

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it's more polite on the grating than on the subs bench

bribe em liam...bribe em,your in south of italy

home of mafiosaaaa

tks for the uptade.

soooooo jealous

benson is very quiet...no updates from him and the mad slovenians.

im sure they are up to some mischief

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top of de mornin to yeh

well i have been trying to catch benson for a podcast, havent managed it yet... he has an interesting tale about the slovenian travel arrangements.

i'm about to go to sleep, tomorrow morning is first day of games. turkey plays spain first thing in the mens grade, followed by france against slovenia soon after which will be an interesting event.

turkey women play belgium and spain in the afternoon so i'm busy all day coaching not to mention spying on other games.

the french men arrived today, no idea where they are sleeping tonight... they were supposed to be staying here at the dorms but many countries have been arriving without bookings or something and the place is full up now... they havent been keeping records of payment so they dont know who is supposed to be here and has paid and who to kick out! what a mess. so anyway france might be in a parking lot for all i know but i'm sure it won't affect their play.

photos tomorrow.

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it's more polite on the grating than on the subs bench

who is/are referees? who is tournament chief referee? is there a sound system? two? one for each playing area? video?

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Carol Rose