Andrew Campbell

Village Idiots

August 6th, 2008 in General.

The dog-days of this campaign are certainly finished, and without a doubt we are in the home stretch into the Olympic regatta. Now, more than ever I am forcing myself to take days off from sailing and tapering my training routines. I’ve reached my fighting weight of 168 pounds for the first time since I was about sixteen years old. Luckily, that’s the weight at which I won my first Youth Champs in Seattle in 2000. After having completed measurement, my boat is almost set for the event and lacks only my name which will be added under the stars and stripes on my sail that distinguish me from the rest of the fleet.

Taking days off is the hardest thing for me to do. Realizing that rest is such a critical part of training for any athletic endeavor, I am always keen to get just a little more sailing done. I suppose it isn’t the fact that I need to practice any more specific drills for the Games, but would prefer to be on the water as opposed to anywhere else.

Luckily China is a bustling place. Just outside the security fence, are towering skyscrapers and millions of people, nearly nine million in Qingdao alone hustling through the streets and going about normal Chinese lives. The culture shock is quite real, unlike any other place I have been. The language is fluid at times and choppy at others and all the while completely incomprehensible to somebody without any training. Even in Europe you can at least get around thanks to the commonality of English’s Latin roots. Let’s just say that if you get lost in a cab here, it could be hours before you’re able to direct the driver to a known landmark with little more than finger pointing.

A group of us went off campus again for dinner last night to a Korean bbq restaurant on the east side of the city. Tonight the US Sailing team will have a dinner at an Italian joint near the center of the city. There are plenty of places to get out and about, eat, and enjoy yourself, but managing your risk of food-born illness outside the village walls against the bland and repetitive chow at the dining hall here at the village is a daily battle. The food in the venue isn’t all that bad, but you get the gist of what to expect after about two days on the menu. Let’s just say that the chefs are doing a great job considering that they have to cook for 400 people and make everything safe and satisfactory for halal, kosher, asian, european and even our American taste buds. My roommate, and our boatwright Donnie has been craving some Louisiana-style hot sauce since about day-3, so we’re having Jacqueline smuggle some over in a village care package.

Village life is otherwise very comfortable and pleasant. Thanks to the air conditioning and the fact that this place will be a five star hotel when we are finished with the Olympic regatta, there is no shortage of comfort in terms of the rooms. We’ve been trying to hook up video and play DVDs on the locally produced big flat screens in each room. Checking emails and updating the website can be done with wireless internet on a couple of the floors. But, mostly there is time for a lot of reading and resting. We’ve had a couple of rousing games of “Corner the Market” (Stu and Graham’s Coach Nigel’s invented board game).

And it’s an otherwise uneventful training and tune-up camp here. There are exciting rumors that are floating around the boatpark all the time, and there is always a twinge of anticipation for what is about to happen: After four years of hard work, and in so many cases more, there will be a handful of medals handed out in the coming weeks.

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