I just got back from the FIVB event in Aland, Finland. This was a trip full of excitement from the start. On the day I was scheduled to depart from Toronto, I had the honour of being a bridesmaid in my cousin's wedding. Unfortunately, I had to leave the party a little early to catch my flight and make it to the tournament on time. (The wedding was awesome by the way. The bride was gorgeous and everything was so perfect!)
So my flight left at 11:20pm for London. Luckily, I was upgraded to first class (thank you Aeroplan!) so I feel asleep right away, for pretty much the whole trip. It was only after landing in London that I found out our flight was delayed 2 hours and I missed my connection to Stockholm, where Jamie was waiting for me. The next flight left 5 hours later, so I had some time to kill (you may have noticed the blog layout has changed a little.. yay boredom!). I eventually made it to Stockholm, rolling into our hotel room at about 1am. The next morning, we caught the ferry to Aland. Why this tournament is on an island is beyond me. The town is very quaint, just tough to get to!
Anyway, we did our best to adjust to the time change and the weather, which was freezing compared to what we'd been used to this summer.
We only had one round of qualification to make it into the main draw. As usual, if we had lost, we'd be out of the tournament. But we managed to pull out a 3-set victory over Norway and earned our way into the main draw for the first time as a team. This was a pretty exciting moment for me too, because it was my first main draw appearance ever.
The next morning we were pretty pumped to play our first match, which was against the top Swiss team, ranked third in the tournament. It was definitely a learning experience! We lost 21-13, 21-16, but managed to do some good things. I think our nerves got the best of us and we could have performed better, but it was very cool to play such a dynamic team. Main Draw is set up in Double Elimination format, so our loss put us in the loser's bracket and if we lost our next game, we were out. As it turned out, we were matched up against fellow Canadians Heather and Liz! It's always a shame when two teams from the same country have to play each other, especially when one team gets knocked out of the tournament. Sometimes the draw can just be unlucky like that. Well, we had just played these guys at Nationals, so we were looking for revenge this time around. It was a good battle and we managed to take the win 21-19, 21-16. We were so pumped because this meant we were able to stay alive for another day in the main draw.
The next morning, we faced a team from Brazil. It was tough to get our rhythm going because this was a very strong team. They beat us 21-16, 21-12 and eliminated us from the tournament with a 17th place finish.
I think I could have played better if it wasn't for an accident that happened the morning of our first Main Draw match. An hour before game time, I banged my foot pretty hard on a ledge. It was bleeding quite a lot, so I went to the medical room and got them to tape it up for me so I could play. After our 2 matches, I went back to get the tape removed and get it cleaned up a little. It was a pretty gnarly gash. They took a closer look at the cut and told me I should probably go to the hospital. Turns out, I got 6 stitches in my baby toe! I felt the pain from the stitches even more than the injury itself, so playing on it the next day was pretty brutal. But, I have a rad souvenir from my first main draw! This is definitely a tournament I won't forget.
