The snipers (Day 2)

Running an event with 6000 athletes from 42 countries in 36 sports requires a lot of planning, a lot of organization. And, from what we can see, it also takes some practice. Some of the early kinks are starting to iron out and things are running a little bit smoother. Our transportation has settled down these last 2 days and is always on time but I hear it's not the same for everyone. We even had a "Volleyball Canada" sign on our bus for the match tonight. The cafeteria is operating well with the usual rush hour periods - from which we are trying to stay away. 

The security around us is out of this world and very tight everywhere we go. A lot of people are involved and police is everywhere, whether it is the local police or the state police. There are even snipers on the roof of each building in the Village armed with machine guns...

The volleyball venue is very well organized with a lot of volunteers willing to do anything for you. I was given access to an office yesterday where I used a computer (theirs, not mine) to download a form from the FIVB website. We also were able to get a box lunch from the volunteer tent for video Dave who has to spend the whole doing Data Volley. Poor baby !

The last event of the day was our match against Brazil. We lost 3-0, scoring only 41 points (19-25, 12-25, 10-25). For the second night in a row Lupo started Carla opposite Brittney, Liz opposite Tammy and Tasha opposite Jenn. For the second night in a row, we got outplayed by a much stronger team. But every cloud has a silver lining. For the second night in a row, we did NOT get out worked by our opponent. We just cannot score. One interesting stat the Data Volley report shows is that off our serving phase, we scored a point every 21 serves. Brazil did it every 3 serves. Overall we had 22 kills in 3 games and Brazil had 51. 

Time to re-group for our match against the Dominican Republic tomorrow, a team that is a little bit more attainable.

Note that the best place to access the tournament results and stats is on the Norceca website at: http://www.norceca.org/2011%20Events/Guadalajara_2011/Calendar%20Womens%20Guadalajara%202011.htm

JB signing off.