10th ARDF World Championships - Nanjing - Day 1

Hi all,

Bruce here from the Australian ARDF team in China. If you'd like to see future
installments of this bulletin, I'll ask you to subscribe to the melb-ardf for
the duration (only this first posting will go to foxlist). This is because this
is likely to be an very biassed account of events, with dollops of parochialism, so
I'm noy going to subject everyone to it if they don't want to ! (Hey, is it a
co-incidence my name is "Bruce" also ??)

You can subscribe to melb ardf by sending message (in the body) containing
subscribe melb-ardf to [email protected]

There will be pictures too ! They will be uploaded to a web-site somewhere and the
reports will point at them. Coming soon......

[My ICQ seems to have died temporarily, but when I get it going again you can message
the Australian team direct on 32015991]

Anyway, on with the story;
I have just got back from the team leaders meeting. Australia is first alphaetically so
I was first to pick a number out of a paper bag to determine our team start positions
for the 2m event. It also meant I was last (had no choice!) for the 80m competition
draw. We got 8 and 18 respectively. This doesn't mean a great deal at the end of the day
since it only determines the start group for the first competitor of a country. The others
are spread through the field.
By the way, there are 26 countries in this world competition. Only the USA team didn't seem
to be at full strength, still missing their team leader Dale and some others. There are
varying numbers of competitors for each country. We have only a team of 3 in the Senior
(Open division).

Some of you may recall my mention of Kurt, from Belgium, in my previous missives from
Korea. Well it turns out I'm rooming with Kurt.

Today it was warm, with occasional rain. We travelled by Bus from Shanghai to Nanjing, a
distance of about 400km by bus with the Yugoslavians and Bulgarians (and a couple of
Yanks). There will be some photos later, but one thing becomes obvious as you travel: you
never really get out in what we'd call the country. Near Shanghai it is dead flat, and only
late in the journey did we start to see some hills which surround Nanjing. There is almost
always a building (usually a block of flats) to be seen, and ususally a continueous row.
Otherwise there are rice fields, canals and dams and occasional other crops. Very little
ground is left to waste

The Hotel in Nanjing is excellent, and after some teething troubles we now have permenent
ethernet (hey this is better than at home!!). After our arrival here we went out for what
turned out to be quite a long walk around the nearby lake. There is an old city wall which
circled old Nanjing which borders the lake (see photo soon -:))

Caught up with some friends from Korea and Townsville. Yes, Jack, madam Butterfly is back.

At the meeting we were shown the electonic tagging system they will be using for the
ARDF events. Each competitor has to carry a Smart Card around and insert
in the reader when they find a transmitters. The times are stored on the card. They
aren't too worried about rain, but point out sweat might cause problems with the reader.
Hmmm, not quite up to Sport-Ident standards, but we'll see how it goes !

Tommorow we have what is called a Model event. It isn't really, since it will be on
completely differnet terrain to the actual events, but it does give a chance to make sure
our gear still works. They have scheduled a team leaders meeting at the same time !!
Obviously there aren't too many team leaders like myself who also compete, so I hope
there will still be enough time after for me to test my gear.

That's all for now. Feel free to ask any questions.
Cheers,
Bruce, VK3TJN

China opens with fanfare ! (#2)

Well here's the 2nd installment.
I can't make this long as we have to arise early (well 5am sounds early to me!)
for the 2m competiton tommorow.

Only Bryan actaully starts anywhere near the first groups. He is in group 6. I am
in group 26 (so that's 26 * 5 minutes wait for me) and Adam starts last in 43.

Well this morning was a relaxed start.The other two were able to do a decent amount
of 2m and 80m practice. I was held up in the team leaders meeting (only some of the
team leaders actually compete as well) with interminable questions which did seem to
go on for hours.
I was able to establish that the distances between transmitters will be adhered to
in this comp. 750m from the start minimum, and 400m between minimum.
What seems a long time limit of 130 minutes has been set. Might be a long course !

Now I did promise pictures. Well I do have them all ready to upload, but for some reason
I seem to be having ftp difficulties. So not tonight.

This afternoon I had a chance to at least test my equipment worked on two tranmitters just
outside the hotel. After that it was all into a huge queue of buses (22 buses at least)
to get to the Opening Ceremony which was on the island in the middle of the lake
outside the hotel.

There are over 350 competitors at the world championships from 26 countries, plus team
leaders, trainers, referees and organisers. This is a BIG event to stage.
I have some good photos of the amazing dancers and acrobats. Some so young (almost
pre-school) it seems hard to imagine it is possible. You will just have to wait
for the pictures I'm afraid.
(If I can't get ftp to work, I might look for a kind volunteer to put them up for me
somewhere, tell me where, and I'll send them by email.....anyone ?).
As far as I know the link from here is fast.
The team leaders were presented with floral arrangements and the whole thing was like
a mini-olympic opening ceremony (complete with marching band).

This evening after some preparation for the event tommorow, I had to go to the team leaders
banquet (the others had a normal plebebian banquet -:) Actually the hotel food is very good.)
Team Leaders banquet was a lavish affair with that evil rice wine, bottomless drinks
and a seemingly endless processions of delicacies. Very nice indeed. I have got to
know Maurice, the Belgium team leader quite well (you see, Belgium is next from
Australia in the alphabet !) since we end up sitting next to each other.
Also a university student sat at our table to help translate. She is studying languages, in
particular English, so with so many different English accents it would be a good
test of her new abilities.

Anyway, I must go to bed. Don't want to disturb Kurt too much -:)

Cheers,
Bruce, VK3TJN

Day 2 >

Home