Performance Ping Pong

Having the afternoon to ourselves 3 of us scooted up to Godby to see some Ping Pong and by fluke managed to happen upon the final of the team event with Jersey vs Gotland starting within 5 minutes!

Not having seen the Ping Pong players in action before, and having got to know a few of them through the Oakfield training sessions, I was keen to see what prowess they had. There was some awesome stuff going on - I wasn't disappointed - such reactions and speed!

The match went the way of Gotland in the end, but no their initial 2-0 lead was annuled to a 2-3 Jersey lead, then to 3-3 and a final score of 4-3 Gotland. Unlucky Chaps - but you must be well happy with that result overall!

Rent-a-crowd were in action again, and our 3-man antics had the Jersey Ping Pong supporters in stitches for some of it, and holding their ears at others! It's amazing how loud those things can be made to be!! Is this ringing in my ears normal?!?!...

3P Playtime!

It's been the 3P Team event today, and so Richard gets his first outing of the Games together with Andy. It's a minority descipline in Jersey, and it's the chaps first proper competitive outing in the event, so we weren't sure how they'd fare.

They both had a good start in the prone section to start with, well they are prone shooters by breed, but the standing proves very tricky and that's where they suffer the most. The kneeling isn't bad though considering it's the position that's least familiar to both of them.

The final result is 4th place with Aland top, Gotland second and Saaremaa in third, some way ahead of the rest of the field.

http://www.alandresults2009.com/Sports/SHOOT/default.aspx?SportID=24&EventID=350

Medallion Men!

Whoooo! - The rifle team stike at last! Steve and Andy got silver in the Men's 50m Prone Team event - Yesss!! So at least the team will not come home empty handed - well done guys!

http://www.alandresults2009.com/Sports/SHOOT/default.aspx?SportID=24&EventID=319

So we've been running into various media the rest of the day and the lads have been doing the media thing....CTV.....JEP (Nice wedding photos...!).... BBC Radio.

And rent-a-crowd have been on the loose again, firstly at the men's volleyball vs Saaremaa making some noise in the face of tough opposition. Then at the athletics stadium cheering on the Jersey girl in the 10,000 metres Victoria Barratt - at one stage we had a really decent rhythm going between the 5 of us on air drums!

So a good day in all for everyone.

It's the 3P team event tomorrow so Andy and Richard get to do their stuff. It's on at 10am tomorrow, so stay tuned to the results site.

God natt!

MegaPussi!

We were in the garage this evening and suddenly noticed they sell MegaPussi for only €4....and in cheesy flavour too!!

(it's a brand of crisps, by the way, before your devious brains go anywhere they shouldn't!)

Hoorah for cheap cheesy Megapussi!!

Eee-out...Eee-out...Eee-out...

Hahahaha - the old enemy went down today!

After the events of Sunday at the range, we decided to try and get to see some of the other guys doing their thang! So the badminton guys were the first to experience Rent-a-crowd - the adopted alter ego of the rifle team when we're not doing the shooty thing! We figure that when we've got some time free we're going to go and try to see as many of the other Jersey guys as possible and make some noise for them!

So, back to the badders...

We managed to get to the Jersey vs Guernsey team match armed with air drums and a particularly effective chant of 'Who are you?!?'. Some great badminton was played, with the Jersey guys digging deep (was that your digging deep face, Kimbo?!), and pulling off a sterling win in the last game of the match to win! Whoooo! Viva Jersey!! And double Whooo as it meant the Jersey massiiiive made it through to the next stage.....and Guernsey were out!! Nice one chaps!!

Eee-out!...Eee-out!...Eee-out!...!!!

Third...not bronze!

The schedule this time around sees us Air Riflers in action very early on. It's usually a Tuesday or so before we have the team match, but here it's the first day of competition on the Sunday, so no time to laze around!

The team match is one of those beasts that can be very strange. To be successful you have to have two only reasonable shooters, but both of you have to shoot reasonably too...AND simultaneously! There's little room for one of you to have an off day, but at the same time it's often one of your best chances to succeed and get a pleasing result. As I said...a strange beast!

Anyway, we were going into this having been training well at home, and with me hoping that the previous night's tweaking and adjusting saw me with a rifle that would make it through the match without letting me down - a mixed feeling really.

I can only speak for myself here, but it was an amazing match in some ways. After the first few dry shots in prep time I'd forgotten about the trigger being possibly dodgy, it was that good. I felt little in the way of nerves, which was excellent news, but the shooting wasn't sparkling. I think it was that although I wasn't feeling particularly nervous, I didn't manage to get the relaxation in the position that I really should have had, so the hold was a little active and as a result some of those them thare bulls got away! End result for me was a slightly below par 569.

The all important part of this though is that you shoot with your team mate, and Peter is the man that matters in this case. He's made really good progress over the last months in training at home and was starting to knock on the door of the sort of scores that might get qualification results for the next Commonwealth Games - yes, you heard me! Peter's been out of the circuit a while though, and this was to be his comeback comp, and what a one to do it on. It's a hard comp in many ways, but one of the most obvious is the amount of publicity and hype it gets back home. It creates a sort of aura around it and the associated pressure pot environment. Peter is so hungry to do well though, and sometimes so that it hurts him, and I think this is what happened here. He was so keen to do well and to not let his buddy down, which is exactly what should happen, but I think it created a fine line between being a genius and burning up on re-entry, so to speak. Unfortunately, the latter happened in this case and Peter's balls must have hurt from trying so hard but unfortunately disappointment set up camp as his shoot burned up and he ended up with a 544. That gave us a total of 1113 and third.

Third in most cases is a bronze medal, but due to their only being 4 teams competing, the rules are that only gold and silver are awarded - Rats!

It's always hard when your plans don't go to...errr....plan, but sometimes that's what happens in this game and you have to take the rough with the smooth and carry on. It's as simple as that really. No-one's fault - we both didn't sparkle as we know we can - some disappointment, but we've learned a lot, will take it, and will come up with a new plan of attack. So it's back to the job in hand, grins back on faces, and looking forward to Wednesday.

Come on down...the fine is right!

Wow - and you think you have it bad back home with the cops?! Think on...

One of the drivers today got caught speeding - a heinous crime at the best of times, but when it's 3kmh over the limit it's even worse!!

Yes, you read that right - 3.

And the fine? Back home, probably a slap on the wrist and a 'get lost', here it's an on the spot €300 fine, and definitely non negotiable with the old 'our speedo's in mph, and it's the Island Games' plea!!

As i said....wow! Now how do I work that speed limit option on our Citroen C3....?!

Practice Pains!

Saturday means a day of practice for everyone before the opening ceremony in the evening and the start of competition. So a shake down for everyone....and, God, was I glad I did!

From the start of the session I was not happy with my trigger, something just wasn't right, and when the gun started going off on it's own and holes were made in the back wall, I wasn't a happy bunny. I had little idea what was up and no idea how to put it right - nightmare!

In the end the rifle was in bits as we searched for a solution...and I was even contemplating taking it apart completely, which involves special tools, to check the trigger mech out. Luckily though a suggestion was made to try adjusting the screw that the manufacturer always says not to adjust and it turns out it helped. The trigger was way heavy though and the rest of the session was spent trying to find a way to lighten it up but to no avail.

I was allowed to take the rifle back to the hotel, so after the opening ceremony, while everyone else was heading into the centre of Mariehamn, I was heading home to the hotel to try and figure it all out. After some more dismantling and some careful adjustment I thought I'd got it pretty much sorted out, and so I could get a reasonable nights sleep ready for the pairs the next day.

Phew!

The Language Barrier...

It's the night of the opening ceremony!

Now, in the history of the Island Games, there have been some very memorable opening ceremonies with some moments that i'm sure will stick in the memory for life....but unfortunately for the wrong reasons:

there was the rain storm in Shetland 2005 that cancelled the ceremony completely. The marathon 3 hour+ ceremony in 2007 in Rhodes sat on lumps of stone - a true test of arse endurance! The slightly bizarre 1999 Gotland ceremony where they mentioned 'coke heads' when referring to one island. The Guernsey ceremony with the flying donkey across the harbour.

Anyway, Aland is no exception...

The ceremony was expected to be good - not too long, it was to be in the stadium on grass and they even provided us with souvenir sit on cushion things (more about these later). However, the jewel of this one was one of the slightly alternative acts they'd booked - a Canadian comedian who did songs too. I'm not quite sure what they asked for when they booked him, but I'm sure the Aland organisers got more than they bargained for. Let me put it this way, I know that the first words you usually learn in any foreign language are the naughty ones, but this was a little close to the bone. We were treated to the finger not once but twice for good measure and 'merchant bankers' were mentioned too. The guy wasn't too funny, but was definitely amusing himself, with his voices of Bob Dylan and imperonations of Oasis. I'll give him his due though, he did get worse!

The rest was pretty good though: there was a dancing troupe, karate squad, and a aliance of dancers, theatrical bods and a singing group that did stuff all based on the hits of Queen - pretty cool really! And fireworks as a finale. No I tell a lie...the finale was the flying seat cushion things when virtually everyone started throwing them up in the air. It was raining these seat things and there was no place of safety as they bombed in. Being made of two sheets of rubber sandwiching some foam, no one was hurt, but it was just bizarre to be under the plague of these things flying about left right and centre.

Fantastic!

This is all not in order!

Hello! This is the first entry but it's not, or rather it won't be by the time I've finished! I've decided to write this a bit late in the day as the best way to pass on news and stuff from Aland 2009, so we're 2 days in already. The first two days stuff will come later....hopefully!

Oh, and it might be a bit postcardy too, with all that English that doesn't really read that well, as I have a habit of writing loads, so I'm going to try and keep it brief by doing lots of small snippets. ...That's as long as I don't get carried away!

By the way, just so you know, I'm the team manager of the Small-bore rifle team who consist of:

Mary Norman - Women's prone rifle;

Steve Bouchard - Men's prone rifle;

Richard bouchard - Men's 3P rifle;

Andy Chapman - Men's prone and 3P rifle;

Peter Le Marinel - Men's air rifle;

Me - Men's air rifle.

Anyway, that's the basics laid out, but I'm sorry to disappoint you immediately, but I have to get to bed, as Steve and Andy have to be at the range for 08:00. Night!!