Sports Meet

A few weeks ago, in one of the many emails I receive from my students, a student mentioned that she was spending much of her time preparing for the school sports meeting. This piqued my interest so I asked her about it in class and was elated to hear that there was a competition for the teachers as well. Now, I haven't really been all that active here, as I have been lazy in figuring out the particulars of the gym on campus and haven't yet found a group of guys with which to play basketball or soccer/football. Additionally, even in high school when in peak physical condition, I was still pretty slow (in sprint AND distance races). But, I love competition, and from playing in the basketball tournament, know that there are only so many young and fit teachers. So I asked around and eventually got a call from Connie, one of the assistants in the Foreign Language department. I signed up for the 200 and 400. Although I was tempted to sign up for the 'solid sphere push' based solely on its title, which was quite the awkward translation of shot put.

It started early Friday morning with the opening ceremony. As if we didn't stand out already, Dave and I were the only two teachers not wearing suits. Because we weren't specifically invited to the ceremony, we didn't know the dress code, and instead wore the school track suit, which we both acquired from seniors 'too cool' for the uniform. For me the highlight of the ceremony was the human dragon performance, which confirmed yet another long held image/stereotype of China.

My first race was later that morning. It was the 400, in which Dave would also run. But, as they announced the heats, our student helper/translator told us we were in different heats. David won the second heat by a small margin over the second and third place runners. He ran it in 60 or 61 seconds, which I thought would be faster than I could run, so I lined up to do my best. Well, as I came around the last turn, I was all alone, and couldn't hear anyone near me. As I came to the finish well ahead of the rest, I did my best attempt at a Usain Bolt look and turn. Unfortunately, I was put into the slow heat, so I ended up getting fifth overall, guess I should have run a bit harder. Dave represented the red, white, and blue though, as he won overall. Bryan, who took part in the darts, just couldn't get into the groove at 8 in the morning, especially without a beer in the other hand, and didn't make the finals.

Well, they put me in the fast heat of the 200 on Saturday. This time though, I was in the wrong heat. I really underestimated the quickness of the other teachers, although this time the PE teachers were allowed to participate (unlike the basketball tournament). I finished third in my heat, and by a pretty good margin. Overall, I did make the announcements (barely), finishing sixth out of twenty odd contestants. Dave, who has been running every day (and in doing so started a sort of running/fan club), took first in the 800, and set a new faculty record. After watching most of the races, we realized that the Chinese sprint as far as they can in every race, regardless of distance. So they tend to be easily beaten by a well paced runner.

In chatting with a few of my students, a few of them claimed to be running in the 20x50. Now, I had seen a few non-traditional events: balance a tennis ball on a ping pong racket while running, the human train race-each runner holds the left leg of the person behind him, and the four legged race (with three people). But a twenty person relay? Then they told me there was a baton exchange in said race, it just sounded too crazy. Alas, it was true, and very exciting to watch. It was run like a shuttle relay, with ten people in each line. There was even a small pole to prevent early baton passes. After some thought, it's a great event for China, I mean how else can 1.3 billion people participate.