Happy Birthday Brazilia

Ray, our coach Xendaco and myself have landed in Brazilia after our final training week in Rio de Janeiro.  We are here for the opening FIVB tournament of the 2009 World Tour season and we couldn't be more excited to play! As it turns out, it is Brazilia's 50th birthday today and the tournament is being held downtown where a projected 1.5 Million people will view the event and various free concerts in the downtown plaza!!  It was absolutely packed when we trained this morning and as we walked from the park to our hotel, we crossed a parade with more than 2000 cowboys riding their steeds.  Unfortunately with so many attractions downtown the danger of being robbed is much higher.  The stats for Brazilia's crimes rates are the worst in Brazil, and with free transit all day, all of the poorer surrounding areas will be entering the city to have some fun and potentially poach bags, purses and jewelry.  Locals have advised us to stay in our hotel and let the storm pass, so we will take their advice, stay inside and prepare mentally for our qualification tournament tomorrow!!!

Ray and I currently have quite a good ranking so we will most likely sit between 3rd and 6th in the qualification tournament.  This is a good position to be in as we play an inferior team ranked between 11th and 14th.  On a far more exciting note, Ray and I have earned ourselves a direct spot into the main draw for China, our next event! It is our first time not having to think about the single elimination qualification tournament so we are pleased to be able to travel all the way to Shanghai with peace of mind.

After a lovely afternoon rest with my feet up, I will return to the event site to watch the Brazilian country quota matches.  We will have our qualification meeting this evening where we will find out at what time and against who will have to play to enter the main draw Thursday.  It looks like we will have to win two games so it is crucial for us to rest well this evening and follow up our magnificent few days of training with patience and power.  

I will update this evening when we receive the draw!

Cheers

Stepping stones against Estonia and our newest video link

Greetings from the humidity of Rio this clear evening.  The big swell is calming now but the mist from crashing waves and the offshore breeze still blows and freshens the lungs.  It was a beautiful walk on the boardwalk after the gym today and I feel blessed to be in the situation I am in.  I spoke to my lovely sister today after she completed her final exam of her collegiate life and she too is in a wonderful position!!! 

We played a few training games against Estonia yesterday afternoon and proved to ourselves that we have the capability of matching top ranked international teams. The Estonias are a veteran team and bring a lot of poise and confidence to the table; something we haven't confirmed in ourselves yet.  We played three matches and came out on the bottom of all of them in terms of score but drew some valuable experiences.  As our coach Xendaco has explained to us many times, we shouldn't look on the other side of the net for a winning solution; the answers lie with us.  With so much time training, we haven't accepted our improvements and ability to win games we couldn't in 2008.  Each match we had a two or three point lead around 14 but gave the game away with silly amateur errors caused by anxiousness. Throughout the rest of this week we will concentrate on keeping calm during tense times and on executing the skills we have been programed to perform flawlessly!

It is officially a week out from our first tournament in Brazilia, Brazil and we couldn't be more excited.  The main draw/qualification list isn't out yet so we aren't sure where we are in the standings but we are hoping enough teams pull out for us to have a direct spot into the main draw! 

We will be playing another game against the Estonians tomorrow, a game against a Brazilian team Thursday and are hoping to get in with the Ces brothers from France before the weekend and our departure for the event!

Here is our most recent video production with footage from our training game against Germany last Friday.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awra4Lzeogs

Enjoy and cheers from Brazil!!!