From Cali- Entry #16

From Cali- Entry #16: Below are a few of last night's pictures. I'll put the video together a little bit later. It was nice to get to sleep in until 11am this morning. Today's a day off at worlds, so there's no racing for us. That's good. Rest is good, very good.

The road racing program will begin tomorrow, and if last night's racing is an indication of things to come, well, get ready to log onto as many websites as you can to catch the action, or get your plane ticket to Cali right now and get your butt down here.

I love relays for many many many reason. Crashes always make things exciting and dramatic in relays, but I was pleased to see last night that there were not that many crazy pile ups in the relay races- well in the junior men Chinese Taipei body checked Chile while going into the relay zone, and the USA senior men had a fall that took them out of contention. Italy senior men as well.

The 500-meter finals were filled with action, including a Colombian junior man getting nailed in the face by an Italian's arm-swing (I got it on tape, you'll see this later) and officials restarting the race. The senioe women involved all sorts of contact, and in the senior men, Italy's Luca Presti slipped in the last corner and fell (I also got that on tape) and Chinese Taipei's was dq'd for I don't know why.

A few links of interest; Alex Bont's day 2 photos, MundoPatin's photos from last night (relays and 500's), 1000-meter finals pics from Alex Bont, and Roller En Ligne's 1000-meter repoting with some nice pics.

I think we're going on a short tour of the city a little bit later today, so I'll put the video together sometime before tomorrow.

Also, a big thanks to everyone who has posted positive and encouraging messages.


The bus ride from the hotel to the track is starting to turn into a wild affair involving high speeds through the mountains, pedestriands jumping out of the way, my stomach feeling upside down when we arrive at the track, and a few concerned faces and sounds coming from most of us on the team. Here you can see Mister Taylor trying to mask his fear & concern

Junior women's 500-meter final- 2 more medals for Korea

Korea's junior women 500-meters

Junior men 500-meters- 2 more medals for Colombia

Senior women 500-meters- another gold medals for Colombia, Korea and Italy collected the two others

Senior men 500-meters- 3rd gold for USA's Joey Mantia, and 2nd silver for France's Julien Despaux. I was talking to some friends last night at the track, and the conversation turned to Julien Despaux. We were thinking that his thoughts when he goes to sleep at worlds must be one of the folloing; 'man, this is cool, this kicks ass- I have 3 silvers at this year's worlds, I am so excited' OR 'if Joey didn't exist, I'd have 3 golds, maaan, that damn Joey, I wish he never came to Colombia'

Joey Mantia

Mantia with the USA team along the side after his 500-meter win

Junior women's relay warm-up- the lap counter says 888 laps. Can you imagine an 888 lap race? Hehe

Junior women's relay-

Junior men's relay flying into the corner

Senior women's relay- USA won this one; Sara Sayasanne was the anchor (last skater) on the USA team and she won it for her team & country in an incredible hawk- you should have seen her face when she came around the track- it looked pure joy and excitement spewing out of her, it was beautiful and inspiring to see

USA senior women's relay- blurry even when they're going slow

Senior men's relay- Chinese Taipei was dominant in this race, breaking clear of the group early on, staying out of trouble while the rain drops fell, and collecting their gold

You can see Chinese Taipei starting to open up a gap

And the gap just got bigger

This is the big crash in the junior women's 10km points & elimination race- I can count 8 fallen skaters, some have already gotten up, and some more are coming from behind to join the pile-up. I can also see Mister Taylor, Morgane Echardour, and I (black shorts & red-tops towards the left)- photo by Alex Bont