Sorry it's taken so long to post anything, but it's been a long day. I left the hotel at 9:30 am for my shuttle to the Berlin Tegel Airport for my 4:00 pm flight. Connected through Frankfurt and then flew to London where I then took an express train to Birmingham to come to the training camp for the next four days. I finally arrived at 10:00 pm.
My roommate at the camp is Jeremy Fischer, who coaches Will Claye, one of only two athletes for the US team in multiple events, the Long Jump and the Triple Jump. Will won a silver medal in the triple jump last year at the World Championships and could medal in both events at the Games. Needless to say, he's a stud.
The hotel is really nice and there's a bunch of security here as well so it should be an interesting few days. Very different than the training camp in Dalian, China. Sorry Shani!!
OK. On to the meet. Amanda didn't compete until 8:10 pm last night. Yesterday was one of the nicest days we've had since we have been over here, but the fact that the meet was so late meant that the temps were a little cooler than they could have been. At the end of the day, anything is better than cold rain with headwinds!
There were 8 girls in the field, all solid jumpers. Amanda jumped 13.90 (45' 7) on her second jump and was poised to move up in the finals. Annoyingly, the awards podium was right next to the runway, so every time they did an awards ceremony, the athletes had to wait. It was a minor deal, but I'll complain nonetheless. Going into the final three jumps, Amanda was in third place. Her fifth jump was probably her best of the night, but it was a foul by about 2 inches. Her last jump was also really good, but she just buckled just a little bit on her step landing (her last contact before jumping into the pit), so it wasn't nearly as good as it could have been. Unfortunately, the girl who was in fourth place jumped far enough to pass Amanda based on their second best jumps. If you see the results linked below, (page 10) it will hopefully make sense to you non-track people:
http://www.domtel-sport.pl/insidethecode/files/3303-pl.pdf
Other cool things from last night: Dan Pfaff's pole vaulter, Steve Lewis, broke the Great Britain national record with a jump of 5.82 (19' 1). After the meet I actually ended up grabbing dinner with Dan, Steve, Steve Hooker (the defending Olympic Champion and Australian National record holder), Brad Walker (the US national record holder), and a couple of the Australian team support staff. It certainly made for an interesting night.
I'll try to load up some pictures tomorrow of the meet and of my adventures here in Birmingham. That's all for now!!
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