Turkish Delight: Part 3 - Morning of the Competion

Weapons check was scheduled for 10am with the poules commencing at 12 noon. I had made sure to take my key with me the night before, when I should have returned it to the reception each time I left. I had no intention of sharing my room with a stranger and thought it would be more difficult for them if I had the only key. As it happens, i slept alone that night, thankfully. I was in bed before 12 and rather than over sleeping set my alarm for 8am, so I would be well up and awake before the competition.

After the initial shock of the shower running brown for a minute, once the water seemed clear enough I braved the waters and got ready to go to breakfast. Breakfast was alright... for 1950's East Berlin and consisted of spam and random cheese with bread. That was it consisted of this culinary delight after another shouting match with the staff of the hotel. A young member of the Turkish team intervened and explained to me to tell them what room I was in. I really don't think they needed to be worried about people sneaking in to get this breakfast for free.

I sat at a table in the corner with a full basket of bread and ate a few slices with ham and cheese that I felt would last me till after the competition.

When it was close to ten I made my way on the venue. Leaving the hotel I ran into an elderly member of the Turkish federation who had helped myself and Marcos, my coach out last year at the competition when my bags had gone awol. We exchanged pleasantries and I agreed to help him walk over to the venue a 2 minute walk the other side of the complex. The Asian side of Turkey apparently has no idea what accessibilty means and had put 5 different series of steps in our path. The problem was this man had had a stroke and his mobility had greatly decreased. This turned the journey into an epic but the sun was shining unusually warmly for a winters morning and we somehow managed not to exhaust conversation all the way to the venue as I help him navigate the steps.

I dropped my weapons into weapons check and talked with the US and British Teams while I waited. As the only Irish person there I was named head of the Irish delegation and had to attend a meeting for all the heads. This was quite an annoyance as it was called right in the middle of my warm up. A heated debate was held over the composition of the DT... I say heated, I mean pefectly calm and I say debate I mean waffle. I left as soon as I could and continued my warm.

I warmed up with Evan from the US team and prepared myself mentally as best I could. It was nearly game time - the reason I was here.