Track and Field World Championships 2011 Daegu, South Korea

On Saturday, September 3rd Shannon, myself, and six friends all headed down to the central city of Daegu to attend the 13th annual IAAF Track and Field World Championship. Held every two years at

different locations around the world, this is arguably the biggest/most important event for track and field after the Olympic games.

Most of the group, Shannon, Jamie, Melissa, Julia, Josephine, Shelly (missing is Frank and Mark)

We took the high speed KTX train from Seoul to Dongdaegu station (East Daegu) and arrived in about two hours time. I had previously booked a couple of motel rooms via the internet (which was way more complicated than it needed to be, but I was eventually successful) and managed to get a nice enough place right by the train station.

The entire event actually spanned the course of a nine day period, and they would typically hold both morning sessions and evening sessions. The morning sessions would generally be only qualifiers and heats, and the evening sessions were made up mostly of semi-final and final events. We had chosen the final weekend of the championship meaning that only evening sessions were being held, but all of the events were either semi-finals or finals. Being the end of the meet, we also got to witness some of the popular favorites (women's 4x400m, men’s 200m, men’s and women’s 4x100m).

The facility is really quite beautiful; it was built for the 2002 World Cup that was co-hosted by Japan and Korea and is one of the more interesting structures I’ve seen over here. That being said, the spot they chose for the construction is a mystery to me, as it was a good 15 kilometers outside of the city and fairly inconvenient to get to via the normal public transportation system. Luckily for us the city had organized free shuttle buses directly from the east Daegu train station, so it really wasn’t such a bad commute.

Day 8 (well, day 1 for us) - Saturday September 3rd

We arrived at the facility an hour or so before things got underway. On our way to our entrance, we ran into a volunteering group that were doing free face painting as a way to advertise their organization (brilliant!). A few of us took them up on their offer.

*Yes, Shannon’s flag really does have 50 stars - perhaps it was that face painter’s masterpiece?

We sat in the A section, which meant we were fairly close to the track but on the opposite side of the finish line. While the picture of the stadium makes the place look really big, it really didn’t have that feel and I must say we had pretty decent seats for the price. Our view of the men’s javelin throw was really great, but it was sort of hard to give women’s high jump our full attention.

Women's high jump, to our right, on full zoom.

Great View of the screen and the mountains behind.

Julia and Melissa. More of the stadium

And there was a lot to see! There were two wheelchair races (800 and 400, men’s and women’s, respectively) that were I believe a first for a championship event. Following that we saw a young American (Matthew Centrowitz) take bronze in the 1500 (after a close finish with two Kenyans).

Centrowitz, Second from the right.

Things really ramped up next with the women’s 4x400m (US team: Sanya Richards-Ross; Allyson Felix; Jessica Beard; Francena McCorory), where we saw the USA set a world leading time (world leading means best time of the year, FYI) to take the gold, a narrow victory over our ever more competitive rivals, Jamaica.

Perhaps the most impressive feat of the evening, though, was next in the 100m women’s hurdles. Sally Pearson (Australia) has really been shining in the event and she looked just liquid in this race. Her hurdling was so fluid, the hurdles might as well not have been there at all. She was seriously playing with the world record and did manage to set a championship record (CR, this is the best time ever run at the world championship event) which so has it was the fourth fastest time in the event: EVER. It was seriously a sight to see. The US did try to keep up and managed to take silver and bronze with personal best times (Danielle Carruthers and Dawn Harper, respectively), but they were outshone by Pearson.

Following that, the men’s 200m was nearly as exciting - we (and the world) finally got to see Usain Bolt in action after his unfortunate mishap in the 100 a week earlier. He performed much as expected (19.40), totally blowing away our US competitor, Walter Dix, by a third of a second (19.70) to leave us with silver.

Usain Bolt in the middle in yellow and Walter Dix to his right facing us.

This was really funny, Usain was literally playing with the paparazzi during his victory lap; at one point he took a photographers camera and took a picture of the photographer with it.

At some point in the evening we notice a guy wearing a USA coat sitting in front of us, and after a few double checks we realized that it was Bershawn Jackson, Olympic medalist in the 400m hurdles and co-gold medalist of the men’s 4x400m the day before. On our way out of the stadium we managed to strike up a conversation with him while he was waiting for his wife in the bathroom. He was really a nice guy and he explained what it is like to come to these events (they had been in Korea for a month prior to get ready and acclimated), how sponsorships work and some other business related things (apparently there is a huge monetary reward to the athletes for winning at an event). Anyways, we were chatting for a bit and he offered to show us his medal! After 30 seconds of taking pictures with it, he was MOBBED by other attendees, so we sort of let him go so he could be fawned over. I wish him the greatest of luck in his career!

Day 9 (Day 2 for us!)

Second day, woot! We got there a lot earlier this day and also met up with an additional friend at the track (he couldn’t manage to get a ticket for Saturday). Getting there earlier meant we could explore some of the attractions they had set up around the facilities.

In our wanderings we also stumbled across a Swedish film crew. They are currently making a film that is investigating the issue of doping (in all forms) in sports so they interviewed Shannon and I regarding our opinion. Personally having a strong negative opinion on doping it was kind of fun to talk to them about it (although I must say they were a little bit leading in their set up before the interview and with their questions, not that I needed to be lead). I hope it works out for them.

OK, then we finally made it into the stadium! Our seats for the second day weren’t as good, so we sort of just moved to the prime seats in front of the triple jump pit - best. decision. ever. We had perfect seats, and apparently the jumping teams (who had since finished with their events) from a bunch of different countries were hanging out all around us. Having been hooked on the championship events all week back in Seoul (we had been watching them pretty much each night), we recognized a handful of faces. Also the triple jump coaches were just crawling all over the place, hanging around the edge of the stadium to give advice to their athletes. At one point we looked back and saw a familiar face: Dwight Phillips, Olympic long jump gold medalist and four time Championship gold medalist (most recent one being only days before) sitting behind us 2 or 3 rows back. He seemed to be secretly enjoying his victorious performance with a concealed celebratory brew, so I bought him another and passed it up to him! And gosh darn it, I’m pretty sure he drank that beer!

Dwight Phillips

And to the events! In the middle of the field was women’s hammer throw. Since my high school league didn’t participate in this event, this was actually my first time ever seeing it. OH! And they had this little robotic car that they would load the hammer’s onto after each throw and send it zipping back to the throwing area! They had done this for the javelin the day before as well, very fun to watch!

If you look closely, you can see the little electronic cars ferrying the javelins back and forth.

As mentioned before, right in front of us was the triple jump and we had two amazing jumpers from the US, Christian Taylor and Will Claye. Taylor was way behind the UK favorite, Phillips Idowu, up until his fourth jump when he absolutely flew, an astounding 17.96m to firmly clinch the lead for the rest of the contest, the fifth longest triple jump of all time. Will Claye couldn’t manage to follow suit though and had to settle for bronze behind the Brit. Again, we had amazing seats to see all of this!

The men’s 5000m saw us again battling with Britain for the top spot, but this time we were on the losing side to their star, Mohamed Farah, who narrowly beat our veteran distance man Bernard Lagat. Lagat had paced himself very well throughout most of the race which had fooled us into thinking he was out of the running as he stayed in the middle pack for quite a few laps. But he turned on the heat later on which made for a really spectacular finish against Farah.

While the next event, the women’s 800m, didn’t see an American placing, it was interesting nonetheless as it saw the performance of, up until very recently, a controversial South African athlete Caster Semenya, who was also expected to win the event. HOWEVER, she was “outkicked” on the final stretch by the Russian athlete Mariya Savinova to make it an upset victory. Very exciting race.

Caster Semeyna is the third one back.

To close the entire championship up, we saw some of the most anticipated events: the men’s and women’s 4x100m relays. The women were up first and it was a tight one, with Jamaica pushing themselves to a Jamaican national record time (41.70). Luckily for the US (Bianca Knight; Allyson Felix; Marshevet Myers; Carmelita Jeter), we were even more formidable that night, pushing it to another world leading time (41.56) to secure gold (the second in two days for Allyson Felix who was also a member of the winning 4x400m team).

Finally that brought us to the end, the men’s 4x100m. It turned out to be a disappointment for the US fans, as we had a collision at the hand off between the 3rd and 4th legs of the race, knocking us out. But Jamaica upped the ante over their women’s team counterparts, not only setting a Jamaican national record but also bumping up the world record as well (37.04). Anchored by none other than Usain Bolt, and setting the only world record of the entire championship, the crowd went wild after the feat.

Having seen all the events, we opted to skip out on the K-pop and final awards ceremony in an attempt to get home a little earlier. We managed to get onto one of the shuttles in good time and even managed to change to an earlier train back home. We were in bed by 1:00AM!

I really must say that this was my favorite sporting event that I’ve ever attended and it has served only to increase my desire to see the Olympic games. I highly recommend that if you find yourself near an Athletics championship in the future that you try and budget it in, as it was really, really worth it.

Masks and Weddings

Hello Friends!

We've been having a really jam packed October thanks to our friend Meaghan Shanahan who is a Number 1 planner! Literally every weekend we've been traveling. It's been great. This coming weekend we're going on a surise hike to Seoraksan- a gorgeous mountain about 3 hours away from Seoul and in two weeks

we're going to the Busan International Fireworks Festival! YAY! Anyway, i'm sure you're dying to know what we've been up to so dive in!

WEDDING

This past weekend a friend of ours got married so we went to his wedding. His wife's family is from Daegu-a city about 2 hours south by the Highspeed train. Anyway. Wedding. Wow. I've been to about 3 weddings in Korea-all of them being a Koreanized western wedding. White gowns, father walking the bride down the aisle, speeches and songs, bowing to parents, all that jazz. there are, of course some very different things about it but, more or less, it all looks familar.

ANYWAY, we went to a traditional Korean wedding. They're so infrequent now adays that almost none of my coteachers had been to one. So first, let me say that I had no idea what was happening or why. There was a man explaining the ceremony to everyone present but he was, of course, explaining in Korean.

Ok. coolest part of the wedding you ask? Um, the Palaquins obviously! They were both carried in on Palaquins. How cool is that?

Oh! and the live chicken and rooster that were on the wedding table. I asked the women who worked there why and she said she didn't know. I'm guessing fertitlity. Isn't that usually the chicken thing?

ANYWAY,they were carried in. Desmond went and bowed to a duck (wooden, not real) that was carried in by our friend Eric. Then he walks back up the aisle to meet his bride. She gets carried in, steps out and follows him down the aisle. They sit on either side of the wedding area with the wedding table between them and blocking their view of each other. I really like that. I think it makes it so much more exciting when they can finally stand up and face each other. (it imagine it's a throw back to when you really never saw your bride/groom until the day of) Ok, so now there's lot's of ceremony happening, and lots of bowing and rinsing of hands and sipping of tea and eating of cakes that they are doing simultaneously or right after each other. I really liked the part where they took a sip of tea and then the cup got passed to the other so they could sip from each other's glass, and then the tea got mixed and they drank again. As a side note, there's no "rehearsal wedding" in Korea so poor Desmond, who doesn't speak any Korean has this women , who I don't think speaks any English gesturing for him to walk here, bow, eat this. Everything a complete surprise to him as it comes up. (my favorite being when he had to eat an obviously unsavory egg cake) Anyway, after all this, they finally stand up and face each other at the table. Really exciting. Desmond was smiling real big. Super cute! And then I think they're married! Desmond's brother gave a speech at the end and Desmond started to tear up. Jin, another friend, was translating and there were lots of appreciative nods from the audience. It was really lovely and beautiful.

After the wedding we went into Daegu to drink. We opted for discount bar-drinks from the family mart and hanging in the park. However, not before we stopped at the bar with adult juice boxes and SPARKLERS! wow. And the wedding couple came out to hang with us. Awesome.

We retired around midnight to our cozy Korean style room for 7 of us. We have this great group of people we hang out with here. I'm glad we all get along well enough to sleep in one room and share a bathroom together. It makes everything so much more lovely.

ANDONG MASK FESTIVAL

Ok. so that was this most recent weekend. The weekend before we were in Andong, the most traditional city in Korea, for the Korean Mask Festival. Again, good thing we get along with our friends because we spent the nights (2 of them) together in almost one room. Korean style house and there were 10 of us.

We tried to go to the mask festival last year but it was cancelled due to swine flu. BOOO. Anyway, we went this year. Awesome.

Imchang Gak

We got there Friday night, settled into our hundred year old Korean house. The main room having no insulation so you could see through the wooden floor boards to the ground. PERFECT! We drank and chatted until bed time in the ondol heated side rooms. We woke up the next morning to boiled potoates with cinnamon sugar (a combination I never thought of before) green onion pajeon (Korean pancake) and shikae (Korean sweet rice tea). It was wonderful!

Hahoe Village

We then grabbed cabs to the Traditional Style Village. Think Plymouth Plantation except people actually really live here. It was beautiful. I think, hands down, the prettiet place I've been in Korea. There was this gorgeous river next to it (the name "Hahoe" is actually a word for how the river curves around the village. It's surrounded almost on three sides by the river). And mountains all around and TREES. Only trees. No apartment building, no factories, no highways. It was amazing as to not see any of those things is extraordinarily rare. Usually they pepper any view. Anyway, we watched the Chinese mask dance at Hahoe and then hopped a bus back to the main festival site.

OH! And we played some traditional games.

FESTIVAL SITE

The festival site was super fun. It was like a country fair back home. Lots of food and games and people selling handicrafts. It was great and I was so happy to be there. We watched belly dancers (lots actually), the Mexican dancers (my favorite), the Thai Dancers (OK, but the fake fight scene with audience participation was hilarious) and a bit of "Buy a Happy Flower" "a mask dance about how Koreans had to part with cows who used to be part of the family." Yeah.

Anyway, my favorite performance was the JaJang Nori. This was a traditional "game" that they playpretending to be the east and west. If the east (or maybe the west) wins, they will have a good harvest. It consisted of hundreds of men carrying the two leaders on platforms shaped like triangles and they would regularly get raised straight up in the air. At one point they attach to each other at 45 degree angles and then all of the people run in a circle. Quite a site to see 100s of people running. wow!

Also, the Korean foods convention was great. We sampled a number of tasty and not so delicious ingredients. One of the most interesting, and not terrible, was the chocolate covered black garlic. It tasted a bit like chocolate covered gummies.

So, as you can see we've been busy. It's been a fun second year in Korea. We've decided that since we're staying a second year we really don't want it to go to waste.

Exciting things about Korea:

Hottoek: It's this rice cake that they fry and with cinnamon sugar in the middle. Oh my gosh! it's so good. It's like fried dough except the delicious isn't ontop it's gooey and hot in the middle! MMMM!

Deom: Free things. I knew this was part of Korean culture as you get something free whenever you go anywhere. Extra samples at the cosmetic store, sodas at a resturant, but it's really much bigger than a casual small thing. It's so common in Korea that there's a specific word for it and it's part and parcel of Korean Customer Service (which is EXCELLENT). I think it fits in with the concept of Gift Giving. People are constantly giving gifts. Today every teacher in the school got a yogurt from a Teacher who won an award and last week we all got rice cake from the principal because her father-in-law had passed and she wanted to thank everyone who came to the funeral.

GPS: Everyone has a GPS in their car. (at least all the cars I've been in or have awkwardly peered into) They great for directions in Korea becuase addresses are organized a little differently here. There are no street names and numbered houses on the streets. Instead blocks are numbered within districts within larger districts. And the buildings on the blocks ARE numbered but they are numbered by which ones were built first. And of course, I use the work "block" loosely. It's more like an area that has streeets and alleys all through it. So you can see how a GPS would be handy.