belgian fun in the sun

the belgian triathlon went off on saturday afternoon - what a blast. the day started with an early morning meeting at the pole archery grounds where myself, tom and ian met to set up the 'cross course

(the poosher surveying the grounds - "yes, it is good")

following the setup i headed back home to get my ultimate gear and make it to assinaboine park for our first playoff game. on the way i had a very president-like moment when i lost control of my bike after hitting a rock on the river trail behind balmoral hall, causing me to careen into a tree - ouch. after a hard fought battle on the ultimate field (we lost - however, our team came back in its second game of the day to win. yeah team.), it was back to the pole archery grounds for the triathlon. the format for the triathlon had one cyclocross rider pared with a bowler, pared with a archer. each team received points based on how the team member did in their event, you could enter any or all of the events. maybe i was still feeling the effects of the run-in with the tree, for whatever reason, i did not put my name in for all of the events and found myself only entered in the cyclocross.

ian and eric figuring out the teams

cyclocross went first and we had to race around a short course which was all grass. nothing kills me more than racing on grass - it sucks you dry from the get go.

tim on the 'cross course

the next event was belgian bowling. belgian bowling consists of rolling a beveled disc, which curl as they roll, at a stake placed in the ground.

jon

gianni

apparently tom has signed us up as team for the belgian bowling league this winter. our team name is mucr-vecken(sp?) and our team uniform - yellow 'lion of flanders' cycling socks.


the final event was the pole archery. pole archery is where you try and knock birds off their perch on a pole 110 feet above your head with a bow and arrow. the arrow's have blunt ends which is a very good thing for obvious reasons.

birds on the 'fork'

here is what it looks like from below

tim shooting with his homemade bow (he built this while in high school)

arlene shooting at the women's target which was 40 feet away and horizontal

sol shooting

the next four pictures show colin preparing to shoot

of course the final event of the day was going back to the belgian club for their other national activity - hooray for the belgians!