Monday saw us prepare nice and early for a midday game against a fast and feisty Japanese team. We came away victors by 60 points with all 12 players hitting the court and good contributions all around.
One of the highlights was Browny being able to time his pre game speech to “Kung Fu Fighting” in the background, which was very impressive. We were given the rest of the day off which was a good opportunity for rest and recovery and a chance for some of the girls to explore the village further including a calming music lesson.
The village offers athletes an opportunity to find what type of music helps them to relax as well as a room full of instruments. According to Emma Langford, Marianna Tolo, Sarah Graham and myself, it appears to be percussion or as we like to call it, just hitting drums hard and playing instruments really loud. Some talent was unveiled as Sarah gave us a small rendition of “Time of Your Life’ by Greenday, which certainly was not what some other fellow athletes were thinking upon our arrival.
Tuesday began with a training session to prepare for the game that night against the Czech Republic. Some of the opposition players were well recognised as very talented players from previous junior world championships and we knew we were in for a tough game.
Our disciplined defence along with our desperation for the ball and tough inside play combined in the second half and we were able to run out winners by 17 points.
Wednesday was our first day off of the campaign. It began nice and early by us going and watching the Australian men’s team play Canada. Unfortunately our vocal cheer group couldn’t get them the winning margin needed to progress, however, we were very impressed by a certain member of the Canadian teams’ warm up styles (which begs to be trialled at training one day).
After that, a large portion of the team used the time to head to the markets for a bit of luxury shopping. The girls seized the opportunity to find Chanel watches (one or two??), genuine quality leather bags (in which seems to be on the gift list of every Australian mum), and a couple of very entertaining lasers. Some of these products were so exclusive in fact that they could only be chosen from a suitcase in a toilet cubicle. I wonder if Westfield offers this kind of service in Australia?
After some shopping mayhem, it was time to return to the village and head to training to ‘keep the legs turning over’.
So far today, we have hit the training court in preparation for our quarter final against Canada which promises to be a tough and physical battle. Hopefully the next time you will be reading this blog, we will have advanced further!!
Tatiyan!
From Mia Newley (UniRoos)
