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Author: michael

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 11 (Bosphorus cross-harbour race)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 11 (Bosphorus cross-harbour race)

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It was the day for the final race of the trip. Since the race was early, the travel agency arranged with the hotel to have an early breakfast starting from 06:00, because we had to check out before 07:15 if we were not staying afterwards. We were then carried to Cemil Topuzlu Parkı for the race. We had to board 2 specifically-prepared athlete boats at Cemil Topuzlu Parkı, which carried all 2500 of us stripped down to only our swimsuits,…

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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 10 (cross-harbour race preparation)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 10 (cross-harbour race preparation)

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This day the tour schedule was to do the compulsory race registration in the morning, which we took our race pack, containing most importantly the athlete badge, swim cap and the timing chip, and also got the wrist strap on the hand. After the registration, we got on the boat tour by the race organiser which went through the course once and explained it. We were told that we should swim towards Europe to the centre first, to find some…

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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 9 (from Finland to Turkey)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 9 (from Finland to Turkey)

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This day was the last day of Fin5 competition, but I didn’t join because I was going to Istanbul to join a group tour starting on that day. That tour was a race tour by SwimTrek, an award-winning travel agency based in the U.K. doing swimming holidays tours around the world. The race was the Bosphorus intercontinental cross-harbour swimming race, which is held annually, a current assisted 6 km race from Asia to Europe. This race is the best open…

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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 8 (Fin5 day 4)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 8 (Fin5 day 4)

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The competitions this day were middle distance, then followed by PreO in Tahkovuori. I brought my swimsuit to have some swimming before the race, but due to time constraint, I could only swim for 1 hour, about 2.5 km there. If I planned properly I could swim for 3 hours between the sprint and TempO competitions the day before as there was much time between the competitions, and there were not much walking needed to the starts. The water temperature…

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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 7 (Fin5 day 3)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 7 (Fin5 day 3)

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The competitions moved to Tahko starting from this day. The competitions were sprint then TempO in Tahko village. I did class H21E in sprint as I am an elite competitor in sprint back in Hong Kong. However, in the competition I was burnt out after about 9 controls and started to get confused, nearly missed a control point as well. I returned at 31’25”, again the last competitor in my class, while the second last was only 23’53”, much like…

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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 6 (TrailO WRE)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 6 (TrailO WRE)

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This day was officially designated a rest day by Fin5, however it was the most important day for me in this trip because despite a “rest day”, there were 2 world ranking competitions, 1 TempO and 1 PreO on that day. These world ranking competitions were held in Halssi, at a walkable distance from Nilsiä which meant I didn’t need transport on the day. We did TempO first, then PreO. There were 7 stations with 5 controls each in TempO….

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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 5 (Fin5 day 2)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 5 (Fin5 day 2)

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I started doing the competitions on the 2nd day of Fin5. It was a long distance competition, followed by a PreO (1st competition in TrailO). I took the organiser bus to the competition, but it didn’t work after the competition since the return time was between the competitions. I did class H21AL (L meant shortened distance) in the middle and long competitions, and this day it was about 7.2 km. I was the last competitor returning in 2 hours, but…

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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 4 (going north in Finland)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 4 (going north in Finland)

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The Fin5 competitions started at Rautavaara airfield and I have signed up for all except the last day competitions. I thought I had enough time to make my way from France after the race Saturday evening there as the race started in afternoon for the first day. My intention was to fly from Geneva from Helsinki Saturday late evening, then do a morning flight to Kuopio where I could take a bus to the competition before noon, however, this plan…

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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 3 (LGSA Classic)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 3 (LGSA Classic)

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This day I did my first race in my trip – LGSA Classic. It is a 13 km lake swimming race from 🇨🇭 Lausanne to 🇫🇷 Évian-les-Bains. The start was divided into 4 waves based on the expected finishing time, from slowest to fastest, and I was assigned wave 2. The course was a simple straight line, therefore I expected to aim for the destination directly. However it was impossible to see the exact finish beach 13 km away so…

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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 2 (Geneva to Lausanne)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 2 (Geneva to Lausanne)

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I didn’t plan to visit any attraction on this day as, apart from the international organisation, I was not particular interested in anything. What I had on this day was only a supersaver train ticket from Geneva to Lausanne, and a hostel reservation there. I made a mistake of buying a non-stop train ticket to Lausanne, which was about 2.5 km past the hostel I was staying in rather than the nearest station which was only 1 km from the…

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