Opening Ceremony 2010 World Championships

Hi all,

I am writing the whole update, because Brittany brought the Blundetto Girl's up for a nail painting party. Red, white and blue nail polish are the colors of the day.

A couple more of our competitors arrived at our hotel today. We have the Japanese team and the Canadian team. The Canadians will only be competing at the master level but they brought our favorite Canadians Denny and Kris. For those of you who don't know or have forgotten, Denny and Kris are the couple who put us up in Canada. We gave them hugs and got to talk with them for a while. They were in China earlier this year and they told us about that, they told us about their National team and all about their trip here. It was really great seeing them here.

Tonight we had the Opening Ceremony. It started with all of the teams walking into the stands, this was a very happy event a lot of the competitors being very familiar with each other. A lot of the veteran competitors knew one another, and exchanged pleasantries and took some pictures together. Brittany and I had a blast seeing all of the competition, what they are doing, and the different cultures.

We got to take pictures at the centerpiece of all of the dragon boats with their heads attached and spot light (so cool). When everyone was in the stands all of the nations started with their cheers. The Swiss and Iranians had some good ones, but one of our teammates Tim successfully led the Americans to the best chant of all (The Roller Coaster). With all of the laughing and cheering complete the ceremonies got under way. All 16 nations were announced and their flags were brought across the stage. Then the drum crew played a great couple of drum songs and the ICF President was introduced. He gave a rousing opening speech and declared for the first time that the 2011 ICF Canoe and Kayak championships will also be held in Szeged.

There was then a singer who was mediocre and then the Mayor of Szeged came on and opened the Championships. He introduced the dancers next and a group of professional dancers came on stage and did a new original dance for us. They were great dancers and both the men and women were Hot (Brittany happily pointed out to me "see popped collars look good"). Then came Brittany's favorite part, the little kid dancers. They were all very talented, young, and in time (with the music and each other).

The next part of the ceremony was a Dragon Boat coming from behind the Island in the middle of the course it was lit up by candles, and had a great opera singer on it. The guy sang beautifully and Brittany and I loved him. He then came on stage and finished his song.

The final part of the Opening Ceremony was of course fireworks. It was a 10 minute long presentation with a lot of good fire works (Brittany and I are both fascinated by loud noises and bright colors...). It was an incredibly cool presentation and really made the whole thing very real for both of us.

We have a 6:30AM bus to catch in the morning to the race course, this is very exciting and a little terrifying, please wish us luck as we win gold for the USA.

Love you all,
Brittany and Grant
PS Here is the site where you can watch the championships live:
http://www.kajakkenusport.hu/sarkanyhajovilagbajnoksag/stream