The roller coaster (Day 15)

It's now 8:30 in the morning on Sunday. The boys left the Village at 4am on a bus that took them to the airport. Everyone is flying home today and the team will have 4 days off before they resume training in Gatineau.

Blair Bann, best digger of the 2011 Pan Am Games

After they left, I went back to sleep and woke up to an empty apartment. The only ones left are the 4 rugby coaches who play their quarter finals today. That will be the only competition of the day, along with the marathon. Then, the closing ceremonies are scheduled for 8pm. Feels kind of strange not to have anything planned for the day. 

Our match last night can only be described by the title of this segment: a roller coaster. We played well in the 1st, not so much in games 2 and 3, better in the 4th. The match was actually played in the 5th game, where both teams kept close to one another until late where we held a 13-11 lead. Unfortunately, we couldn't conclude and let the Americans pull away with a 19-17 victory. The match scores were: 25-22, 15-25, 19-25, 25-21, 17-19).  After having played such a great match in the round-robin against them, this defeat leaves us with kind of an after taste. But not enough to overlook how well the guys did in this event with very little preparation. Everybody can go home with their heads held up high and build for the future months. So we finish in 6th place, a respectable finish, with one great highlight: Blair Bann, our libero, was named best digger of the tournament. 

I will post one more report that will include general thoughts on our team and on the Games in general. In the mean time, time to start sorting up my stuff and figure out what I will do today.

JB