Back To Back Sep 1st
Gregg and I had our second international event in the past two months when we traveled to Norway. We managed to qualify again and I'd like to think we're starting to make this a habit... well at least a regular occurrence. Kristiansand is one of the best venues we play on the World Tour, sitting on the harbor with a massive church overlooking the tourney. The weather was a bit suspect at the begging of the week but it perked up for the main draw and we drew the 5th seeded Norwegians Kjemperud/Skarland.
We were pretty excited because Gregg hasn't had the chance to play on center court and I was dying to know how fast my jump serve was (or slow, as it turned out). Just so everyone is on the same page, the nice people from Swatch have a speed gun set up on center court. It measures in kilometers per hour but for anyone reading back in the states 100 km/h is about 60mp/h. I know i should be more concerned with winning our first match but to be honest I really only wanted to get my name on the top ten fastest serves. I managed to start the game off with three points on my serve but only one serve registered. I'd like to think they were to fast and that's why they didn't register but the one that did register was about 82km/h. Well, there is some Russian dude that hits his consistently in the hundreds and his fastest this year was 114.5, so I have some work left to do. Anyway I continued to wack away for the rest of the match but didn't get above 88.1km/h, oh yeah, and we lost the match. Not to worry, it's double elim and we have the Spanish team of Lario/Gavira.
Lario/Gavira hosed us down pretty good at the beginning of the year but we're playing a bit better right now than we were then. We got dug in for a battle and came out on top of the first set with two wild swings by Lario that went wide. In the second set we were cruising along and had a three point lead on our serve as the end of the set closed out. The Spanish guys looked pretty defeated, kicking chairs and arguing with each other, and we only needed three points to close things out. Unfortunately it didn't work out, at 16-18 Gavira came up with a net band ace to move the score to 17-18 and an end change. Then on the next play Gavira scoops a cut shot from just inches above the ground and it dribbles over the net and we miss-handle the pass at 18-18. I don't know if you've ever heard of the wheels falling off but I think they went first and then the rear axle, the transmission and just about all of the other important part of well oiled machine followed. We only managed one point at the end of that set and lost 19-21. The third set was just a continuation of the end of the second and we lost 6-15. Matt said we played World class volleyball for almost two sets of a match but unfortunately the powers that be say we must play to 21 and not 18 so we got a 25th. However, we won a set and are playing some rather good quality volleyball. We're taking Mallorca off to rest up for Blackpool and Brazil and I might be heading down to Brighton for the U21's (first international event in England since '96).
On Our Way Home Aug 23rd
Quarter to eleven Beijing time, and my last atempt to get a better seat has failed. I think I might try and sneak into a better seat once we board but you never know. Aside from the seat problem things are going quite well. I have had a ridiculous trip that really doesn't seem real. Somebody said it may all sink in when I get back and start to talk to people about it and I think that may be true. For now it all seems to be a blur of events, like yesterday when I shook Gordon Brown's hand or last night when we haggled with scalpers at the Mens indoor semi-final match. That match might have been one of the fastest indoor games I have ever seen. Brazil came out on top in four thrilling sets of 120 km/h jump serves and sets to 4 that looked like shoots! They will be taking on the US in the final and the same match up will be going on in the women's final today.
Back to the reason we were actually here the men's final of the beach volleyball... and it did not disappoint! Phil and Todd vs Fabio and Marcio was more of a game than I had hoped for. It went the distance but by the first end change of the third set the momentum was in favor of the thin beast and after 4 more blocks the next end was 8-2 to the Americans.
Steve
Two Matches... Sweet! Aug 21st
We had a great surprise today, the womens Gold medal match was played right after the Bronze match so we got to stay and watch. This was a fantastic surprise because we thought it was later on and we didn't have tickets for it. Watching volleyball in a 12,000 seat arena might be one of the most amazing experiences ever! The atmosphere was incredible and the Chinese fans really got into it. I was very surprised to see so many USA fans and one of the biggest US fans, Chris "Geeter" Mcgee, was on hand to do the comentating. Who Knew! Kerri amd Misty didn't dissapoint and won another gold in two sets, but not really easily... well they sure made it look easy. They are pretty special and I hope we see the same from the likes of Phil and Todd tomorrow.
After being soaked earlier today we had a decent afternoon at Tian something square. I should remember the name of it but after an hour trying to find a taxi I'm slightly delusional. Not to worry - Si, Denise and myself managed to keep ourselves occupied in the taxi rank by playing Princess, Bear and Hunter. I even met Jet Li and got a picture of me working on my moves with him. Mens final tomorrow!
Steve
Will This Make Our Boat Go Faster Aug 20th
This morning I woke up to the pie man knocking on the door because he had to take our bags down to reception to be checked in (after the crushing defeat we gave them at Cranium the night before). Missed some conditioning for one and a half men's semi matches. Phil and Todd crushed Georgia and as we found out later Ricardo/ Emanuel lost to Fabio/ Marcio in two. That means we'll be watching Brazil vs Georgia on Friday and trying to sneak in for the final later in the day.
We left the holding camp today and headed to Beijing. After getting used to having my bag totted around for me we had to carry them from the baggage claim to the bus... and then they were taken to our hotel from there. Lol!
Once we arrived at the Olympic village we headed to the entertainment and fitness building which was pretty cool, easily another way to be distracted. From there we walked over to the dining area (complete with a McDonalds) and had dinner. WOW! What a building it was too! The dinning hall seats 5,000 and is open 24 hours a day and they had pretty much everything you could imagine, so I had pizza (my mind was on overload so I took the easy way out).
The next part of the tour was a presentation by our tour guide, Mens eight rower Ben Hunt-Davis, who won gold in Sydney. He talked about their defeat in Atlanta and how they lost out on a final by about two feet. One of the changes they made was committing to only doing things that would help them improve (make the boat go faster). For the next four years that was the question that they asked when faced with a decision about training or competing. I don't think anyone in the room didn't want to head down to the gym and lift some weights or do some cardio. All in all not a terrible day, oh, and we are staying about 500m from the Birds nest.
Steve
Hello Sat 16th Aug
Hey everybody! It's been way too long since I've added anything but we have some pretty exciting stuff happening in the next few weeks and it's worth writting about. We leave for Beijing tomorrow and along with watching the mens and womens bronze medal matches we will be checking out the holding camp in Macau and taking a tour of the Olympic village. I'll be sure to keep you posted about how things are going over there.
Along with the trip to China we have very meaty part of our tourney schedule coming up. I think we have 5 tournaments in the next 4 weeks and we'll be stopping in Norway, Brighton, Spain, Black pool and Brazil. So very exciting things to come and I think a few results may be hiding in those tournaments, fingers crossed.
Steve
We did it Sun 20th July
We did it, we qualified in Marseille, to become the first Great Britain men's team to ever qualify for the main draw of a world tour event. We played well throughout the tournament, beating a teams from the UAE and Norway to qualify. Both games were good preperation for the main draw, allowing us to increase our level of play with each match.
In the main draw we were seeded 30 so we would play number 3 which would be Mesa/Herrera from Spain. What a great opportunity to play a world class team. Herrera won silver at the 2004 Athens Olympics. It was another good game. After some close play and a couple of swings for the first set we ended up losing narrowly in 2, 23-21, 21-19. Our second match was against the Swedish team of Berg/Brinkborg, they are an experienced team and just missed out on the Olympics this year. We never really found our rythmn throughout and ended up losing in 2.
Overall we were pleased with out week in the south of France, and the opportunity to play main draw volleyball has just made us more determined to get back there soon. We are back off to Bath for 5 weeks training and then we head out to Norway for the first post Olympic world tour event.
Until next time.
Gregg
Been a crazy couple of weeks Sun 15th June
Well since the last time I updated you guys a lot has happened. After our experience in Italy, we travelled on to holland where after we won our first game and then lost to an experienced german pairing of Urbatzka/Krug. After being at home for a full 22 hours we began our trip to Poland for the FIVB event. We played in the qualifier on the Wednesday, and again won our first game. Unfortunatly though, we were not playing very good volleyball and lost to the Austrian pairing of Hupfer/Shroff. We were dissapointed about it but they played well, and we didnt, and you definatly cant win world tour volleyball matches when playing badly.
This left us to fly home on the Friday. We arrived back in Bath at 8 o'clock that evening and then woke up at 4 in the morning to begin our trip to the first VEBT event of the year in Skegness. Although it rained all day saturday, the event was a hit. Everyone involved had a great attitude to the event, and with the council's backing, the event was amazing. The final pitted us against the other GB squad members Robin and Jake, but we came out with the victory and the 1st place prize.
This allowed us to have a couple of days off before we travelled to Sweden to play on their tour, which we had been invited to do by the Swedish head coach. What an experience it was! We arrived Wednesday to a stadium built in the middle of the city. We would play our first game Thursday afternoon, one that we won, which meant that we would be playing for a place in the semi finals on Friday morning. When Friday morning rolled around we came up against the team of Gunnarson/Andersson who play FIVB We played a bit tight and came out on the wrong end of the results. This meant that we had to fight our way throught the losers bracket if we wanted to be in the final. In our second game on Thursday, we came up against last weeks finalist. We played a lot more relaxed and with lots more conviction and won in straight sets. This left us with a semi-final clash with the number one seed on Saturday morning. We won 2-0, with some very good serving and sideout play. This meant we had made the final, and it would be against Nielson/PJ. Nielson is a great athele, coming in at 6'9" and having just come of a indoor season in Greece where he had helped his team win the tital. He could possible be the most impressive hitter I have actually seen in reall life. This would be a tough game, with his presence at the net we would have to move the ball around and keep him moving. Well, we played a very solid game, siding out at a high percentage and both putting on a tremendous amount of service preasure. We came out victors again, and this time claimed the 1st place prize and a Swedish beach event.
We are now back in Bath were we will enjoy 3 weeks training with our coach before we head back out on tour. We will keep you up to date with how things go, and we will update our photos of the last month asap.
Gregg
Oh So Close Sun 18th May
Well it has been an eventful week, our trip to Italy was interesting, after 14 hours of traveling, via a plane, car, train, and bus, we arrived at our hotel. We managed to get a couple of really good training sessions in before we played on Wednesday. When Wednesday rolled around we found out there were 64 teams in the qualifier, meaning that we would have to play 3 rounds to qualify, our first round game was against a team from Canada, after a slow start we came out winners 2-1, which set up a 2nd round game with De guiter/Ronnes from Holland, these guys are in the unfortunate situation that they have the results and the points to qualify them for the 2008 Olympics but they are currently ranked the 3rd Dutch team so will not be going to the Olympics unless they obtain some big results this year. Well again we started slowly lossing the first set 21-15, in the second we began to find our groove, and ending up winning 21-16, The third was an absolute battle, with them going up, then us coming back and leading, actually having 2 serves for the match, eventually at 15-15 they score 2 quick points to take the match. It was disappointing to lose the game, but we learnt alot of valuable lessons, and have managed to gain the respect of alot of good teams on tour, which has lead to us being able to train with better teams, which is only ever going to help our development.
Well we are home for the weekend before heading out on Tuesday for another 2 weeks, to Switzerland and Holland. cheers
Gregg
The Austrian Experience Sat 10th May
I apologise for not writing on the blog for a couple of weeks, but it has been a busy couple of weeks, Steve and i flew out to Florida for a 10 day training camp, and now we are in Austria. We played in the qualification today, we won our first game against Latvia 2-0, it was a good game, we have been talking alot about getting back into our game, and it definatly felt like we did, and Steve serving an absolute booming ace to finish the game always helps.. Our second game was against an Austrian team, who had claimed the junour European championships in 2007. It was a good game, and again we felt like it was another stage in developing the game that we want to play, but unfortunatly we lost 2-1. One of these 3 setters is going to go our way at some point.
Well that leaves us to pick up some training the next couple of days, until we head straight to Italy for the world tour event. I promise i will keep you up to date with how things are going.
Gregg
When in Spain..... Sun 20th Apr
Well the week didnt quiet go as planned. We were drawn to play against the Spanish team of Lario/Gravira, they are a good team, but we both felt that it was a good opportunity. Unfortunatly though we didnt perform the way we know we can on the day, both being a little bit timid at the start, and not really finding our rythmn throughout, which ended in us being beaten 21-19, 21-16.
We have managed though to get a couple of day really good training in after the tournament, and are both looking forward to flying to Flordia next week for a 10 day training camp, where we should be able to get some really good sides to train against.
The week has ended with a twist though, Steve and Jody Gooding were asked to do the commentary for the TV of the semi´s and finals for both genders, so i am sure that there is some very cheesy lines being pulled out, and i think that it will be hilarious to listen to when we eventually get the tapes.
Well that is all from me for now, we will let you know how our training camp goes in Florida.
Gregg
Back to Work, with a twist Sun 12th Apr
Well we were back to work this week, and it has been a good weeks training. With the sporting giants aroung this week we used them to our advantage, by bringing them in to block against us, which was entertaining, with them rangeing from 6'6 to 6'9 it is only ever going to help us have them come in and block against us.
We also had an amazing experience on Thursday, we were asked to travel to london to play volleyball infront of the change of the guard to help promote the upcoming CEV event in Blackpool, and what an experience it was, something that i will always remember doing. If you would like to see some pictures of us playing on horse gaurds parade please click the link http://news.sky.com/skynews/picture_gallery/0,,70141-1312499,00.html
Well we fly off to Gran Canaries early monday morning and then have a great month of volleyball ahead of us, so we are both looking forward to playing alot of matches and getting some great training in. We will keep you up to date with how we are doing.
Gregg
Back In Bath Mon 7th Apr
When we left in early March the weather was warming up and I was hoping that by April it would be practically summer. However, after several days in the high 30s in South Australia (that's somewhere around 100 for everyone back in the states) we are back to training in snow flurries for a week. Next week we head out to the Grand Canaries, where I'm sure it's back in the 30s, and then from there Gregg and I are heading out to Florida for a week of training.
Anyway, back to Aus - what a great place! South Australia was kinda like England in the US but without Taco Bell. There was no shortage of fish n chips but the weather was very warm and the housing was very ranch style. It was really great to be close to the beach for a few weeks and to be able to get up and walk a few blocks down the road and train with loads of different teams. Although we didn't win any matches in Aus the training was still very good. We played against Japan and Latvia, both of whom are currently qualified for the Olympics, along with my old buddy Nick from Florida who is now playing on the AVP. Along with getting some good training in I got to watch some amazing volleyball. Almost every match I watched was closely contested and loaded with exciting rallies. Add a bit of flair from the always entertaining Stein Metzger and it was a great tourney!
Steve
Home safely Wed 2nd Apr
Well we have finally arrived back in England, after an unbelievable 30 hours of travelling we finally arrived home. It was a good trip and we have learnt alot from it. We finished off last week with some great training with the USA team, and watching the finals, where Brazil won both, with some fantastic volleyball on show. Well we have a recovery week this week, no sand training just a couple of weights sessions. Which give us some time to get back to normal before training starts on monday.
Gregg
Are We really in Australia Wed 26th Mar
How things change overnight is unbelievable, We trained on monday morning our last before the tournament starts, it was about 25 degrees with blue skies and no wind. We wake up on tuesday morning and all has changed. A storm front had hit Adelaide, with 20 - 25 mph winds blasting off the water, and rain we thought we had woken up in a different country. The weather continued into today which made our 8:30 match an entertaining one. Unfortunatly we found ourselves at the not so good end come the end of the 3rd set and ended up lossing 15-12 to ukraine, who went on to edge out the Japanese to qualify for the main draw. It was a tough game but there has been some valuable lessons learnt and we look forward to our next event in Spain. Well we have a couple more training days left before heading back to England on the 31st. Thank you all for your support.
Gregg
Nearly there Sunday 23rd Mar
Only a couple of days now and we will be starting our summer, we cant wait. We have had another good weeks training, and luckily the weather has began to cool down, now we are only getting mid to high 20s!!!! Well we have managed to squeeze in some matches with some very good teams with week (Japan, Latvia, Russia, and USA) and both feel like we have had a good preparation. We have one more training session left, and then we are under way on Tuesday. Until next time.
Gregg
Week 1 down Sunday 16th Mar
I cant believe we have been here a week already, we have had a good week managed to train with some very good international teams, ( Australia, Japan, and Denmark) and began to adapt to the hot conditions. It has been above 38 degrees every day, Adelaide is officially having a heat wave. Its supposed to drop down early next week to a chilly 30 degrees!!!! We have another great week planned, and come next tuesday it all begins. Thanks for all your messages of support
Gregg
Other side of the world Monday 10th Mar
Well after a nice 24 hour flight we have final arrived in Aledaide yesterday. We arrived just at the right time. They are having a heat wave in Adelaide, when we landed at 7o'clock in the morning it was an amazing 23 degrees, eventually getting up to a toasty 40 degrees. We had our first training session this morning at 11o'clock and the 40 degree heat persisted, its not going to take us long to get used to the heat at this rate. This afternoon our coach has told us we are off to do some conditioning at a place called the snake pit, so im sure that will be fun. Well we will keep you up to date with our progress.
Gregg
Getting there Friday 29th Feb
Well im back in full training, and its been a good week. Getting ready to start playing matches in our first tournament in a couple of weeks. With the weather taking a turn for the colder and alot winder side, our sessions have certainly been entertaining. Tuesdays session was that windy that serving the ball over the net took more effort than i can ever remember it taking. Friday saw Jeff Brehaut (who is the head of referee deligations for the FIVB) come along to our session to referee our games to try and help us prepare for the coming season. Well next week is a short week and then we fly off to Australia on firday evening. Exciting times ahead
Gregg
Good News Monday 18th Feb
After my scan today, the Doc gave me some good news, after a few massages and a couple of hours spent with the physio this week i should be back full training. Im a happy man
Gregg
Light week comes at the right time Friday 15th Feb
We have been on a light week this week, for the last time before we head out to Australia. What a good time for it to come, I have been unable to train at all this week, with a suspected lower ab strain, I go for a scan on monday to find out more. As for Steve its been a good weeks training, he managed to get the sole attention for all our sessions, lucky man. With the support staff coming together though we have managed to complete alot of off court tasks. We will have to wait and see what Monday brings, but hopefully ill be back doing some kind of training Tuesday, I will leave a blog Monday night so you all have an update
Gregg
Valuable Training. Friday 8th Feb
Once again we were blessed with amazing weather this week. The temperature has been hovering around 12 or 13 degrees(that's about 55 degrees farenheight for my family and friends back home in the states). My blood must be getting thicker because you would never have caught me outside playing beach volleyball once it got down below 15 degrees. I even managed to get enough of a sweat going that I got a few plays in with my shirt off... unfortunately we won't be posting those pics this week. However, we did manage to make some time for a bit of defence. The technique was the tomahawk and, much to the disappointment of our coach, I seem to have quite a bit of control - maybe more than the one arm pokey (also a Matt Grinlaubs' favorite). After some careful deliberation I may be using this as my preferred passing style for serve receive
Steve