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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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 1 (tour of Geneva)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 1 (tour of Geneva)

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Geneva is a metropolitan city which is the home of many international organisations, among them the most famous ones are the UN and Red Cross which we can visit. Therefore I planned to visit both, just next to each other, on the day. However because of the baggage and accommodation trouble the day before, I visited the Red Cross and Red Crescent museum first, then took a bus to the airport to get back my baggage, returned to the city…

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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 0 (departure)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 0 (departure)

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My trip started on 2019-07-10, leaving Hong Kong by taking flights SU 213 to Moscow Sheremetyevo and transferring to SU 2382 to Geneva. I tried to pack to a carry-on only but failed to do that, because I wanted to bring my laptop in the trip and it contributed a lot to the weight, so I ended up having a 45 L backpack as checked luggage, taking the risk of baggage misconnect. (Aeroflot is notorious of baggage misconnect especially in…

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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – introduction & preparation

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – introduction & preparation

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When the event calendar of TrailO world ranking events was published last year, I started planning the events and trips that I would go this year. One of the events that I would definitely go was FinTrailO, as I had good experience participating in the 2018 event, and this year there were 3 instead of 2 world ranking races, also I grabbed a cheap air ticket well before. However, doing 3 in a year was not enough, as the best…

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