Argentina

Well the Olympic Qualification Tour has already been quite a journey! And we are still only in our first country of Argentina. I was excited heading to Argentina as it was my first time to the country, and thus far I have not been disappointed. The travel to Argentina was pretty horrific. I managed to get an aisle seat as is normal for myself being one of the shorter guys in the team. No big deal except for the fact that the seats on the aircraft were unusually close together, and I had a guy in front of me who continually reclined his seat fully, even when my knees were right there! So after the 38hr door to door travel we arrived at our accommodation.
Well our accommodation for the first night was in a sports facility in Buenos Aires, and the rooms were well…..small! Zane had a lot of fun fitting into his bed.

When will people learn to design beds without a pole on the end hanging above the height of the mattress!!! It just doesn’t help tall people.
However after 2 quick training days we were on a plane to a more southern province and the town of Trelew. When we landed Trelew pretty much looked like a town situated in the middle of a semi-arid wasteland!

Apparently it’s the gateway to a lot of national parks and wildlife attractions on the coast. However the hotel and food were really nice and the stadium was fine to play the game in.
What I soon realized is that people in Argentina like volleyball! As we arrived to the stadium for the first game there were 40-50 people outside and a maybe another 100 inside 1 and a half hours before the game! When we got out from the change rooms it was a packed house. Probably 1000 people packed into a relatively small gym. There was chanting and screaming and drums and even abuse being yelled at us a lot of the game. It was a lot of fun! As far as the game went it was a good result for us. Severely jet lagged and having not played a proper game together for quit e a while we put it together well and scored a 3-1 victory against the world #6 ranked team. Personally I was pretty happy with my game, nothing special but I was happy with my contribution in my new… (Well more permanent) role as Pass-Hitter.
After the game we were trapped by the many fans (mostly teenage girls) wanting to take photos and get autographs signed. It was here Igor stamped himself as the crowd favourite!!

I’m sure he loved it! Oh and we also won a massive trophy, not unlike the size of the Davis Cup. Unlucky for Jarryd who as the youngest gets to lug that around till he goes home!

So game 2, same gym and we played with a different line-up to the game before. Unfortunately it was a different result as we went down pretty badly 3-0. We just didn’t seem to be as switched on as we were the day before. It’s true we did play with a different line-up. But I believe all the players we have on tour at this time have shown their ability to play at a high level, so a think we were all a little disappointed with the result.
Now came the fun bit. In neighbouring Chile a volcano had erupted sending a volcanic ash cloud heading our way. So Airports were closed…..meaning instead of an 1.40 flight we had an 18 bus ride to the town of Mercedes up in the north! To be honest it was not a lot of fun, leaving at 12am we arrived at just before 6pm. The game that night was switched from 830-930pm. Now talk about playing under duress! I worked out at this stage I had about 18-20hrs sleep from the time I left Australia. However the first 2 sets we were pretty good. Just losing the first something like 35-33 and winning the 2nd to about 17. After that the Argies got a little on top of us and were a little more consistent. So we ended up losing in 4. I felt a little disappointed with the last half of the game personally. I was really putting in, but at time my concentrating and technique would just waver a little. Tiredness was probably a big factor, but I get the feeling I better get used to playing tired on this tour.
2nd game in Mercedes was pretty much the same as the first one result wise. Close in the 1st, winning the 2nd and losing in 4. However I felt we probably played a bit better and the match was a higher standard from both teams. We made less concentration errors and our transition set-up and attack was a bit better as well. So after getting mobbed by yet more teenage girls as we left the stadium(as had become the custom here) we got to have a decent sleep and then a 2 hour drive to General Bergamo, which is where I’ am now. From what I can tell it’s a pretty tiny town and I’m interested to see what kind of crowd we get tonight. Apparently Russ asked about what the stadium was like, to which the interpreter replied.. ‘Well it’s the only one in town with a roof on it.’ It’s going to be an interesting game I think!

I’m also going to keep a little tally of travel times and the amount of physios and massages I’m having in this trip! I think it will be interesting

Travel count: 42hrs

Physio count: 5

Massage Count: 3