Things are finally starting to settle down over here. It’s currently Tuesday evening on the first night off Track and Field competition. We all got in at various times on Saturday, with a group getting here as late as midnight. After dreading the 16 hour flight for so long, it ended up really not being that bad. I slept a large majority of it, although some people got the chance to catch up on about 6 or 7 movies they hadn’t gotten to see yet. By the time we got there, we were pretty ready to crash. We received our Xtep gear bag (the Chinese athletic apparel company sponsoring the USA) and our room keys and headed over to the dorms. It’s a pretty cool set up here, every single building and venue is brand new specifically built for this competition. We were amazed by how advertised the event was locally. There isn’t a building or billboard that isn’t decked out in Shenzhen colors or with the mascot “UU”. The various USA teams are all between the 3rd and 7th floors of our dorms so we’ve seen a lot of them.

We had our first taste of the dining hall, which has a variety of different sections including International, Asian, Mediterranean, Local and Muslim.....and McDonald’s. Presumably the McDonald’s was for the Americans, because they were extremely excited to give us all our McDonald’s cards pre-loaded with 80 dollars worth of greasy goodness. I’ve been sticking to the basics, there is usually some sort of pasta for dinner and lunch, eggs and meat for breakfast with cereal, fruits and salads. After that we just crashed for the night, even though we were on a different time schedule we were all pretty tired from the travel.

Sunday was kind of hectic, there are only twenty of us and only 5 staff so figuring out logistics has been a healthy balance of guessing and asking around. There are volunteers everywhere who are eager to help, although we I’ve had some times where we just can’t get across what we need. We went and saw the track for the first time and practiced. There is a warmup track nicer then our track at school and a 60,000 capacity stadium to go along with it, it’s truly a sight to see.




Monday we got adventurous and headed out to the markets. We had heard rumors of seriously marked down merchandise so everyone wanted to go shopping. Dr. Dre might as well have sponsored this event because the majority of athletes are leaving with at least one fresh new pair of Beats. I wasn’t quite as good at bartering as some of the other guys like Joey, Jeshua and Marquise...I kid you not they left with some of the big ones for 30 dollars and the ear buds for 8.

Competition started today, you can watch it live on the FISU TV website. So far, everyone has advanced through the day and we have our first medalist with Mason taking bronze in the Men’s Shot. Coach Gondak is getting in a little later tonight, I think things will start to get a little more real for me tomorrow as the first heats get closer. It’s been fun but it’s almost time to buckle down. The 800 prelim is Friday morning! Go USA!

FISU Results & Schedule
FISU TV (live streaming)
FISU Website