Back home in Canada

After a few days of sight seeing in Sweden we are back home again.
The time in Sweden was a very memorable one and we had a chance to do some sight-seeing.
Thanks to Caroline Carlbom who put together a super program for us, she had arranged for a tour of the Volvo Truck plant near Gothenburg and a scenic drive along the coast south of Gothenburg. Also a thank you to Bernt Eliesson (congratulations on your bronze medal) who showed us the training facility of his team, also thanks to his girlfriend Danella who fed us at their house and showed us around in Varberg.
Caroline took us fishing on our last day and at night we were invited for supper at her husband's restaurant where we enjoyed a great dinner.
Thanks you Caroline with Family, Bernt and Danella

End of Competition

well -- the competition is over, we finished in 11th place, we wanted a placing with only one 1 in it, now we got 2 of them. All in all we did pull well and Jim was not disapointed with the way we were pulling.
We just had supper and the party is about to start now, therefore this will be a very short posting.
Thanks for all the support from back home.
cheers

September 7th

The big day is here -- so far the weather looks good, a bit foggy but it is improving by the minute. We just finished breakfast and at 10:30 a.m. we will meet in the hotel lobby and then walk over to the pulling grounds. We will have to get stamped for our competition in the afternoon. The registration numbers will be checked as well as our passports to make sure we are the same team that weight-in on Thursday night. We will have some time to watch some of the pulling in the 720kg class before we start our warm up at 12:30. By 1:30 we have to be in our designated tent and by 2:00 the 640kg competition will start.
Here is the link again for all those who are interested in watching the competition. We are on after 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time.
http://stage.bowlstream.tv/tugofwar/Default_en.aspx

September 6th

the morning started with heavy rain again. By noon the heavy rain had stopped and only the ocational shower passed through. Today and tomorrow are the two days for the Closed Competition, only one team per country will compete under their country's name. The opening ceremonies took place on the pulling field at 9 a.m. and the competition for the men 560kg and the Junior 560kg started shortly after. All teams were soaking wet after the first pull but this didn't have any effect on the quality of the pulling. In the afternoon the men 680kg and the women 560kg were on the program. Our women competed today in the 560kg class and finished in 8th place. After supper we will meet to discuss our schedule for tomorrow and we will have an early "lights out" to be ready for tomorrow afternoon's competition.

September 5th

The day started with rain, heavy at times, but shortly after breakfast the rain let off and by 11 the sun was out. We had to go to the competition area to get the team stamped that weighed in on Wednesday night. After the stamping we watched the morning competitions of the men's 720kg for a while and then started our warm-up by jogging around the track close to a soccer field. At 2 p.m. our competition started and to our surprise there were only 5 teams in each of the 8 groups. The previous day the competitions went on too long and the decission was made by the organizers to reduce the number of theam in a group. Instead of 4 groups of 10 teams they decided to go to 8 groups of 5. We splitt ends with the first team (Heure) from Holland, lost the next two pulls against Lakehill from Ireland and Engelberg from Switzerland. The next and last pull was against a Swedish team and we won both ends. This put us in third place in our group and we did not advance to the finals. Engelberg went on to finish in first place and Lakehill finished in second overall.
At 9 p.m. the briefing for the Saturday and Sunday competitons was on the agenda. we received our draw sheets and the following teams will be in our group on Sunday;England, Wales, Lithuania, Ukraine, Ireland, Scotland, Israel and South Africa - 9 teams in total.

September 4th

Today was the first day for the Open Competition, the weight classes were Men 560kg, Men 680kg, Women 520kg and Junior 560kg. We are on the pulling schedule for the 640kg class tomorrow. We used the morning for training near the competition area and finished the afternoon with watching the finals for the men's 560kg and then the start of the men's 680kg and the women's 520kg. South-Easthope from Stratford had entered a team in the afternoon, two of our pullers, Ginger and Julia, pulled on that team today. Before the end of the competition we decided to go back to the hotel to check our weight. We weight on the test scale was perfect - 638.5kg and we went direct to the line-up for the official wegih-in. After 45 min it was finally our time to step onto the scale. After tonight we are done with all the weigh-ins and we no longer have to cut back on our food intake, a very good feeling, especially with all the good food they have at the all-you-can-eat buffet. Tonight, some of us also had a massage to stay loose.

We arrived in Sweden

at 2 p.m (8 a.m. at home) we arrived at our hotel. The weather was sunny with a few clouds and 17 C. We have been told that it was sunny every day for the past 4 days and late afternoon they had a rain shower - let's hope it stays that way for the next few days.
After a visit to the test scales we had to go for a run because we were 4 kg over. This was a good opportunity to jogg over to the competition area and check it out. The grounds are very well set up for the World Championships. While we were jogging in the woods behind the pulling area we did see 2 moose, they crosses the path about 100 feet in front of us. Most of us had never seen a live moose in Canada and only after beeing here in Sweden for 3 hours we run across two of them. After our return to the hotel we went for the official weigh-inn - 635 kg was our weight for the 640 class. Now we could go and eat, the food was excellent.

Web TV from the World Championships

Visit http://stage.bowlstream.tv/tugofwar/Default_en.aspx for live coverage and results from the World Championships.
There is a 6 hour time difference, therefore the broadcast will be on Friday from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. (price giving ceremonie for Open Club Competition)
and on Saturday and Sunday from 3 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time (live broadcast of competition)

World Championships

Today we will be off to Sweden, our flight will leave shortly after 5 p.m. and will take us via Helsinki to Gothenburg. After our arrival in Gothenburg we will be picked up by the organizers and be taken to our hotel, the Stenungbaden Yacht Club.

World Championships Sweden

From September 4th to 7th we are competing at the World Championships in Sweden.
We are trying to keep our visitors up to date by posting daily comments.
You can also find additional information at the World Championships Web Site or the Tug of War International Federation Web Site