Monday, December 10, 2007

European Cross Country Championship 2007 TORO




Zamora, Toro; ESPANHA
Yesterday we had a very nice trip to Spain with Arek - the photoman, Sebastian, Lech and Altino - the driver. We went to watch the EAA Cross Country Championship in Toro. We started our trip with a half hour delay, because the night before the trip was a bit long for most of us. They picked me up at 7:30 a.m. (portuguese time zone). The destionation is 130 km from Bragança, so it was not really a long trip, but it was very interesting one.
The weather was sunny, no clouds and the ambience in the car was a bit sleepy (Arek had to make it up for the last night). It took us some time to find the place of the event - we were lucky that Altino saw a very small sign with the direction of the competition.
We arrived to the "place of the crime" a bit later than we planned, so we missed the first two competitions of female and male juniors. I found my friends from Slovenija more or less immediately - I was so happy to meet someone from my country after two months. A big surprise happened when I wanted to speak with them in my language and I had to find the words to say... I did not speak in Slovenian language for 2 month to anyone live, so it took some time to switch my language.
We found our position for watching the race - and tried to enjoy our day as much as we could - anyone in his own way. Sebastian, Lech were giving atention to their Polish collegues, I was was cruising around the competition to see famous faces from the Track&Fields of the Europe, Arek was taking photos and Altino was observing his Portuguese athletes.
For me was very interesting to see their warm up, what kind type they do, the exercises... Everything I could see. In the audience I recognized Mayte Martinez of Spain and I could not resist to speak with her. I liked her English with a Spanish accent.:)
The most interesting races were of course the senior ones. In female Spanish native Marta DOMINGUES won in a very souvereign way - leaping apart from the opponents in the final 500m and coming home with her hands high in the air to celebrate her victory.
In the man race the sitiation was similar; Sergey LEBID from Ukraine outsprinted Mustafa from Sweden in the last 300m.
After the competition we took some photos together and I also took some photos with he female winner MArta, who was celebrating in some calm place behind some old house. We I spoke with her, she really impressed me - her handshake was very strong and her look was so determined one. She was really happy and I could feel her energy.
After we left Toro, we went to Zamora to hotel were Slovenian team stayed to spend some time with them. Nastja brought me my stuff, which my friends sent me from Slovenija and I gave her some stuff to take to Slovenija.
We also took a small tour through the city and we all found it very beautiful. The buildings were manly old and pretty good kept.
We wanted to go on some party they usually make after the competion but we found out that it colud be a problem to enter there, because we are not the participants of the competition. So we went home around 8 p.m. and we finished our trip in Bragança - Lech and Sebastian went home and Altino, Arek & me went to some small restaurant to have a dinner: françesinha for Altino, tourada for me and some steak for Arek.
I got home very tired, but veru satisfied with the day and trip we made.
Ate amanhã.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Currrrrrrrva im on the internet. LOL :)))

Yeah pretty much u said it all, congratulations for your post, i just would like to make some minor corrections, we started late the trip in part because Lech had some stomach problems.

And u did not eat tourada at dinner but torrada. Tourada is bullfight lol.

Yeah it was a great day.