On easyjet flight from Sofia to Gatwick. Everyone’s ordered food because the airport wasn’t serving any, so it’s a bit chaotic and they’ve run out before they reach the middle of the plane. Luckily I’m near the front, still waiting for my pizza though.
I left Gatwick 6:30am Friday, which meant leaving at 3am, which meant only a couple of hours sleep. Luckily a very kind fellow was able to take me to the airport, which meant I didn’t have to sleep there, as I have done in the past. Slept fretfully the whole flight to Bulgaria, was met at the airport by guys holding a ‘judo’ sign. They told me it’s cheaper to change money at the hotel, so I jumped in and got my first look at Sofia. There was snow everywhere, random tall apartment complexes towering over otherwise lowrise buildings. Signs with strange characters, and the odd English word. The radio playing music with English lyrics, as is the case almost everywhere. I arrived at the hotel in about 15 minutes, you never know how long these airport transfers will take, and the driver often speaks little to no English. I was ushered to the accreditation room, the only one there at the time. This was a relief, as I often have to wait in a queue for hours, not nice when making weight. This is a disadvantage of travelling alone, the coach usually does all this. Another disadvantage – single supplement on the room, this time it was 95 euros per night, plus a 10 euro entry fee, resulting in me handing over 200 euros in cash. I confirmed my flight departure schedule, name, date of birth, weight; picked up back patches, entry pass, info pack. I could then finally go to the hotel reception to collect my room key in exchange for my passport, and go up to the 13th floor to a room of my own for two nights. It seems in Bulgaria smoking indoors is normal, and this was especially apparent in my room. It was about 1pm, and I just wanted to sleep, but there is one thing every judo player wants to do immediately on arriving, and that’s find the official scales. I dumped my bag, and went straight back down to the ground floor, found the scales easily enough, and came up with 64.1, which is not too bad. I went straight back upstairs and fell asleep, setting my alarm for 5pm, but on waking resetting it for 7:30pm so I could go to the draw at 8.
Before the draw I rechecked my weight, and was happy to be 63.6, I always seem to lose loads sleeping. Officially one is meant to wear a suit to the draw, but I walked in wearing my tracksuit confidently enough, and sat near the back. No one questioned me. Yet another advantage of having a coach – I was the only athlete there. They started with lightweights, first showing the list of entered athletes on the screen, along with world ranking positions to decide seeding, and give a couple of minutes for anyone to correct anything. Then the draw button is clicked, and the seeded athletes are placed in the respective positions, and the rest of the athletes are placed randomly (as far as I know). This is done instantly, then the result is shown on the screen for a couple of minutes, and printed out. I only stayed until 63 was done, I saw I had an unknown Swede first, and quietly left the room. There is generally some talking after the draw about judogi regulations, rule interpretations etc, but frankly I didn’t have the energy to listen to any of that. I went straight back to my room, and fell asleep again.
I woke at 6:45am, which is 4:45am British time. The official weigh in was 7:30, and I immediately went downstairs to check my weight. I was happy to be 62.6, the lightest I’ve been for some time. The hours of sleep had done me good, and I had no need to sweat off. I even had a little water while waiting to weigh in. After checking my weight I quickly went upstairs again to get my passport, water bottle etc, and went to sit in the weigh in room. On Saturday there were 48, 52, 57, and 63 fighting, and there were high entry numbers, with 35ish for 57, so the room was crowded. I didn’t feel like standing packed in a queue for half an hour with semi-naked hungry girls, so I sat in the corner of the room, sipping on a tiny bit of water. There were two sets of official scales, and 48 and 57 weighed in first, so there wasn’t really any point in me lining up anyway. I waited until the queue had all but disappeared, and then stood up and got straight on the scales, officially weighing in at 62.75. I immediately downed half a litre of water, and went to breakfast. The hotel obviously wasn’t prepared for the chaos that is breakfast after a judo weigh in, and couldn’t bring the food out fast enough. I managed to get a bowl of muesli with milk, eaten with a fork as there were no spoons, a glass of juice, and made four jam and cheese sandwiches. Before going up to my room again I asked at the reception to change some money, but to my dismay they said this service is unavailable today! This meant I would have to go to the competition with no local currency. Very bad advice from the guys who picked me up at the airport, I think from now on I will get local currency at the airport irrespective of what I’m told. I went straight up to my room, got my things together, and got on the 9am bus to the venue, which was about 10 minutes away.
I knew I wouldn’t be on for a while as I had a bye first round, and the competition is done round by round, so I wasn’t in any hurry. I slowly got changed, and then did some warming up on the official mat area. There was very little space, and I had no partner, so I had to use a very little corner to do shadow uchikomi and stretching. Despite not having anyone there I was feeling good. I have put in some past good performances travelling alone, I think it can allow me to concentrate on my performance and not get distracted. I was listening to my ipod and feeling confident and relaxed, more so that I have in the past. I was pleased to see that referees were available to check that judogis met the new requirements during the warming up, and took the opportunity to put my mind at rest. One of my sponsors (enVirtua) has just bought me two new Mizuno Shiai’s, and they hadn’t been worn or washed yet, so I was happy they passed with flying colours. At 9:50 everyone was kicked off the official mat into the warmup area, which was very small. I was pleased one of the Japanese girls I trained with at Tsukuba last year before the worlds recognised me and gave me a big smile and a wave. I had a little chat with an American girl that I fought in Samoa at the end of last year as well, but I prefer to keep to myself on competition days. I had to wait for about 2 hours to fight, I was on 24th on mat 2. During this time I went from lying down listening to my ipod with my eyes closed, to warming up again more fully just before I was due to go on. About 2 fights before mine I went to the accreditation check area, and handed in my pass. I gave the kid with the box my ipod, socks, and water, and stood next to my opponent, ready to go on. She was a bit taller than me, and I know her coach a little because he was a student on the EJU judo degree at Bath that I helped run a couple of years ago. It is nice to have a coach matside, but when I don’t it doesn’t bother me too much. The fight before us went into golden score, which prolonged the waiting time. I knew she fought in a particular way that I find difficult, as I had seen her warming up, and also the American girl I talked to had fought her and told me a little. I had a plan going in, and felt confident. My plan worked for all of 5 seconds, then I made a mistake and let her dominate me, and she threw me for ippon in 17 seconds. Disaster. I knew that she was my nightmare fight, just the style I hate dealing with. I had a plan, but I was not practised enough in executing that plan, and perhaps the plan wasn’t sufficient. I felt so embarrassed, so much money, so much travel, so much effort for 17 seconds. Probably one of the worst fights in my life. That’s the way with judo, one tiny mistake, leaning the wrong way once, or not pushing hard enough, and it’s all over. So harsh. But I guess it means that we are forced to learn from mistakes, otherwise competitive judo would soon become infeasible economically and mentally. Personally I feel that a great disadvantage coming from New Zealand is lack of experience. Most of my opponents have been competing around Europe since they were pre-teens, and I only had my first international when I was 18, and that was only a small competition in Australia. They competed nearly every weekend, I competed maybe 4 or 5 times per year. However I can’t use this to make excuses, this is the situation and I must deal with it. I must use my other strengths to compensate, and at the same time try to get as much experience as possible.
After I fought I got various texts from people who had watched my fight online, it made me feel somewhat less alone. I ate the sandwiches I had made that morning, and had a little sleep. I watched the Swedish girl’s next fight, and she beat the top seed in our quarter quite convincingly, she is very awkward to deal with. I felt like going back to the hotel to sleep, but also felt obliged to watch the rest of the day’s fights, which is what I ended up doing. The Swede lost her next fight, which was the quarter final, but looked like she could have won it, and again lost in the repêchage, placing 7th. All her opponents struggled with her, which made me feel a little better, but not much. There was a break for the opening ceremony at 5, and I had a little nap on the warmup area again, which was by now almost empty. The finals started at 6 with lightweights, and surprisingly all the 48kg matches finished with ippon in a few seconds. The rest weren’t so quick, and I think all the 63 matches went into golden score. As soon as the Dutch girl Stam had started holding down the Japanese girl in the final and it was obvious she wasn’t going anywhere, I got my things together and walked to the bus that was waiting outside. On the ride back to the hotel I heard from some American girls that some rooms had been broken into on the 9th floor, and laptops, money and passports had been stolen. Very bad news. Luckily I was on the 13th, and when I got there I was relieved to see my things were fine. I had a quick shower, then went to the Italian restaurant next door. I was dismayed to learn they didn’t accept credit cards, and was happy that I was able to talk them into accepting euros, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to have dinner. A large pizza, full meal salad, and fanta came to 6 euros, which was very decent. I went back to the hotel and took my laptop down to the lobby to try and get on the internet, but about 20 people had the same idea and the connection was essentially non-existent, so I gave up and went to sleep at 9pm.
This morning I got up at 9am, had some breakfast, packed my bags, and was taken to the airport. I’m now about to touch down at Gatwick. It has been a very expensive trip to emphasise an already known weakness, but as Lance said to me it’s better to make mistakes now than in London. I know what I have to work on, and I have already made a time to work on it with my coach.