Bowling Green State University Athletics
Van De Walle Begins World Championships Journal
June 19, 2006 | Volleyball
June 19, 2006
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - June 16/17- This is Day one of the USA Womens's Sitting team at the Triple World Championships in the Netherlands. We are traveling with our USA Men's Sitting team as well. This is our first chance to qualify for the 2008 Paralympic games that will be held in Beijing, China. We all met at different times throughout the day at JFK airport to fly over to Dusseldorf, Germany, then bus to the Netherlands. I was the first one there at 9:00am. It makes for a long day since our flight wasn't leaving until 5:45pm. Everyone got there ohay and we all boarded with no problems. We sat on the plane for a while and actually didn't leave until 7:20pm. The pilot came on and said that he could make up the time while we were flying and that he did. The flight only took 6 hours and 38 minutes. I knew it was going to be a great flight when I boarded and got an aisle seat ... with two other people in my row of four. Right before takeoff they moved and never came back. I had the whole row to lay down and sleep for the flight! It was awesome! Once we arrived we got through customs very quickly since it was 7:30 am and it wasn't very busy at all. The bummer was that the luggage for one of the player's and our videographer was lost. We filled out a claim and left with little hope they would find it. The bus was there to pick both teams up and take us to Roermond, Netherlands about an hour away. We got to the hotel, and immediately had to go to the table to check in the captain's jersey and pick up our schedule of what colors we were going to wear each day. We also received our badges which allows us entry into all the venues. The official checked us in and we then sat in the lobby for 6 hours and waited for the hotel staff to get our rooms ready. I was extremely impressed with how patient both teams were especially since it was 2:30 in the morning back home and that's the time our bodies were on. They laid around and tried to get some sleep any where they could find room. At 3 pm we checked in to our rooms. They are typical European rooms ... small. This one has no airconditioning, so the nights are warm ... there are no screens on the windows so it's hard for me to sleep with the windows open all night since we've already seen three big spiders! (Not a good sign for me!). After a nice dinner in the hotel we boarded the bus for our first practice. It was better than we thought it would be considering we were so tired from the flight and lack of sleep. I think we're ready! We came back to the hotel for the technical meeting...where they go over all housekeeping issues of the tournament. It was extremely hot in the room and it was so hard to stay awake. We learned about the bus schedule, opening ceremonies, practice schedules, meals, etc. A very long first day comes to a close at 11 pm. I'm glad to get back to the room to sleep.
June 18-Day 2 Today we were up for a 9 am breakfast and then a little free time. I spent an hour on the phone with Delta airlines and LTU to try to locate the missing luggage only to find out that they can not locate it anywhere. What a tough situation for these two to be in. We left the hotel for the opening ceremonies held at the playing site. This is called the Triple World Championships for the Disabled. There is Men's and Women's sitting volleyball and Men's standing volleyball. The players are usually amputees but there are some with polio or other disabilities. The ceremonies lasted about 2 hours and conisted of all 28 countries marching in with their flag. It was fun. The typical welcoming speeches followed. We were entertained by some dancers and then it concluded. We left the gym and headed to practice at another facility only to get there and it was locked up. (For those of you reading this that haven't travelled internationally...these things happen all the time). We eventually got in and had a really good one-hour practice. Lots of intensity. We looked really good. We boarded the bus and headed back to the hotel for dinner. (By the way, at this event all the meals are provided. Breakfast and Dinner at the hotel and lunch at the playing site). After dinner we had a quick team meeting to go over the schedule for tomorrow and then it was off to bed. We open play against the Ukraine ... a team we beat in Athens when we were there in '04.
June 19-Day 3 USA vs Ukraine We win in four games. We're 1-0 to start the tournament. The USA men lost to Croatia in three.
