We flew into Summerside Friday night where the team was welcomed by many volunteers into the athletes’ village where there was an orientation slideshow and H1N1 screening. The athletes’ village was located in an old air force base in Slemon Park just north of Summerside. The accommodations were quite cozy with 8 athletes to small sized hotel room. The boys room didn’t have air conditioning for the first couple of nights which made for warm, uncomfortable sleeping with the very hot weather. Fortunately they worked that out and gave us air conditioners making sleeping more bearable. The food was pretty good with 3 meals a day and food available all the time.
Saturday was the opening ceremonies but before we went to them we went for a swim in the morning at a beach nearby the racecourse. We rode down to the beach, then swam around for a while but had trouble finding water deep enough to swim in. Then we went back to the village where we got ready and met up with the rest of Team Manitoba to take the bus to the opening ceremonies. The opening ceremonies took place at Credit Union Place, which was a big venue for the games with beach volleyball, soccer, and basketball taking place there. We were the 4th province to enter the arena and since Sarah was our flag bearer we got to go right at the front of Team Manitoba. The Governor General, Prime Minister, Premier and many other honorary guests were in attendance and took time to address the athletes. Following this there were many performances by PEI performers. Then we went back to the village and went for a short run.
Tuesday was the day of the individual race, and it would turn out to be a very hot day. It was pretty windy so the water was quite rough for the girls race at 10 but it calmed down a bit for the guys race at noon. The water temperature was 23 degrees so no wetsuits allowed. Both races had pretty small fields with under 30 competitors each.
In the girls race Sarah swam on Stevie’s feet to get into the lead pack on the bike, but Rachael didn’t quite make lead pack and got caught by the chase pack at the start of the bike. In this situation we decided to use team tactics to ensure the best possible results for Team Manitoba. Rachael helped the team immensely by sacrificing her own race to help out her teammates. Sarah and Stevie were in the lead pack and came off the bike 2.5 mins ahead of the chase pack. Sarah then ran strongly ended up 2nd to Alison Hooper of team B.C. Stevie finished 7th and Rachael 10th.
So after all of the excitement of Sarah’s silver medal it was the guys turn to race. Josh just missed the lead pack and ended up biking with Mark and one other guy, well Riley was in the next pack behind them. The strong lead group of 7 or 8 rode strong and worked well together to put time on both of the chasing groups by the end of the bike. Josh and Mark both ran fairly well ending up in 7th and 8th. Riley had an ok run ending up in 16th place.
Here are some pictures from Tuesday:
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