Day 1 - Australia High Performance Wrestling Camp: Arriving at the Australian Institute of Sport6/20/2014 We arrived safely at the Australian Institute of Sport this morning after a 10 hour journey connecting through Melbourne, Australia. Having visited Melbourne a couple of times and seeing pictures of Sydney's Darling Harbour as well as the Harbour bridge and world renown Harbour Opera house, I can see how difficult it is for one to believe that Canberra is actually the Capital city of Australia. Of course, that was purely based on what I saw and did not see (in this case any sky scrappers) while on the plane descending into Canberra Domestic Airport as well as the first 30 minutes or so spent on a mini bus enroute to the AIS. Upon arriving, we found out that the wrestling camp actually starts tomorrow as most of the athletes are arriving today which is great because we were worried about arriving late. Eventually, the first day was mainly spent checking-in to our rooms, touring the AIS grounds checking out the facilities and I must say that I was very impressed by the facilities and the level of support the Australian athletes are receiving. We also spent some time over lunch havng a chat with the High performance wrestling coaches, Alan Landy and Luba Hofr to have an idea of what we would be doing in the coming days and of course most importantly, catching up on our much needed sleep. Thanks to Eddy who alerted me via whatsapp, we made it back in time from dinner to stream the 97kg freestyle finals of the Russian Nationals, where Gadisov defeated his opponent with relative ease. Unfortunately, we missed the 57kg category finals where former World champion, Lebedev became the champion. Its great to know that he is back wrestling after not seeing him actively competing in the last couple of years. It is always fun watching the Russian nationals with the brilliant display of highly technical and smooth wrestling skills of the wrestlers and I hope to visit Russia one day to watch the Nationals live in person. Until then, its off to the bed in anticipation for our first wrestling practice tomorrow!
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AuthorGabriel started his journey as a Martial artist looking to hone his skills which saw him moving from the arts into the combative sports to battle test his training in Jeet Kune Do. Along the way he picked up many fitness methodologies, a Sports science degree and eventually immersed himself in Olympic Wrestling which he now spends most of his time training in. Archives
June 2015
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