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Moscow - European Champion Clubs Cup 16 September 2006


Presentation Evening 9 October 2006

It was nice to see so many of the athletes turning up - bearing in mind that some have gone back to uni. It was also a pleasure to see the Managing Director of EMCOR Infrastructure & Rail Services, Mr Ivor Goldsmith; as well as Kent Stone & Mike Salmon. I hope they enjoyed there trip to Hayes. And, on behalf of the Club, many thanks for your kind donation.

 

 

Moscow -2006 - as seen by Rebecca...

Thursday

Was roused at some ungodly hour to go and meet the Blackheath and Bromley Harriers team at Bromley South Station. We caused a fair amount of chaos with our oversized luggage crammed to near bursting with all our new kit but managed to make it to London without crushing too many fragile business women with Prada hand bags and lap tops.

Had a slight hiccup at Victoria when it conspired that Sarah McLellan had got on the wrong train and was on the way to East Korea via Aberdeen. However we eventually arrived at Heathrow, although not before I realised that the zip of my case had broken and that I was leaving a very distinctive trail of food, clothing and electrical components across Heathrow Terminal 4!

The flight took about three hours and was made all the more amusing by a gay air host(ess?), my overly efficient bladder, that meant that Vicky had to contort herself into a complex Yoga position every 5 minutes so that I could dash past to go to the loo, and a mad film that involved a man in a habit banging his head against a wall with his mad Spanish friend.

Eventually arrived at the hotel after catching a bus from the airport. Hotel rooms were not all that special, as were the showers- which weren’t actually attached to the wall and so meant that in the process of washing, you would also wash the ceiling, your towel and all four walls in the adjoining wall.

Friday

Started the day with breakfast in the hotel. Whole team attempted to steal provisions for the day but were stopped by a fierce Svetlana with a pinny and breakfast tray who yelled threats (in Russian) of what I took to be life imprisonment or similar.

Then went out on a sight-seeing tour of Russia with incessant commentary provided by the very lovely Olga. We saw the sights of Moscow, including the few remaining Baroque churches and the city university. However, Olga seemed hellbent on ignoring all buildings of architectural significance and instead spent the best part of what seemed like half my life trying to persuade the team to buy a partially demolished flat.

The coach stopped at several viewpoints to enable us potter out, take photos and freeze. The views across Moscow are pretty exceptional and I must have spent a good 5 minutes umm-ing and ahh-ing at the lakes, buildings and women wearing nice rodent fur hats and parkas.

We then went up and down the river on a ferry which was nice and relaxing bar Olga’s continual interruptions with informative heavily-accented snippets bellowed across the boat at between 7500 and 7550 decibels. The buildings across the river are varied and almost invariably beautiful. I think that it would be fair to say that Russia is best seen from the river as some of the views were outstanding.

After, we got back on the boat and returned to the hotel. Olga grabbed the opportunity to put the whole team in a stupor with the tragic tale of Ivan and his 7 unfortunate wives-of which we were told about each one in great detail.

Saturday

Day dawned at last-was very funny at breakfast watching everyone eying up the competition. Vicky, especially, went a fashionable shade of green after seeing several heavily muscled throwers of indeterminable sex eating about 70 boiled eggs a-piece.

Whole team went to the track except me and Ella-who then spent the next hour running around the hotel taking a wide berth of the pervy men with cameras looking for someone with a black tracksuit. Eventually sussed out the shuttle system and arrived more than a little flustered at the track.

(have not written a race report-have assumed that Brendan/Jean have)

I stood in for the steeple chase, an event I had never before thought about, let alone done as Catherine Chambers had sustained a knee injury. Standing on the top of the water jump for the first time, I got an acute attack of vertigo and could not face the thought of plummeting down 60 feet into a plunge pool but eventually did.

We came third by a point and so were in a very happy and celebratory mood on returning to the hotel. Basically the whole team assembled in the hotel bar and through actually talking to one another rather than just staring (a la Russians), caused so much noise that the bar tenders called the police/ mafia (I am still undecided) who pranced about for a bit waving foot long guns at everyone with an English passport.

Sunday

Went on another sight seeing tour with Olga and visited a variety of garish churches and parks with nice pansies. Whiled away a very pleasant morning walking from church to church, comparing frescos and such like. Was kept amused by the advanced security system in operation around the churches, presumably put in place to prevent evil impostors from stealing roubles out of the collection tins.

Then walked on to the Red Square, which was very beautiful and has a variety of different buildings in various different styles. In particular I liked the crazy cathedral which had been decorated very cheerily, located just outside the square.

Team then returned to the hotel and prepared to go home-back to East enders, bread and mum!

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this trip. Speaking on behalf of the team, we had a fantastic time and are very very grateful to you for giving us this unforgettable opportunity.

Rebecca Taylor
 

 

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