Jared & Grace: Day One

Jared

Hello from Wroclaw!  We have just started our journey here volunteering at the World Games and even though we’ve only been here a couple days I can safely say that Poland is a wonderful place and I already dread having to leave! My friends and I were able to walk around the park at Centennial Hall and it was absolutely stunning. The building is simply gorgeous and on one side has an amazing set of fountains. There are many fountains in different locations in the water and they go up and down in different sequences. Additionally they vary in size with my favorite moment being the middle fountain, which is the largest, going off at all full blast. The food has been tremendous as well, it is so rich and hearty which is perfect after walking around for hours. I had an amazing plate of chicken, mushrooms, and potato pancakes in a champagne sauce that I wish I could share a picture of but it was so delicious that I ate it all before thinking to get a photo.

2017 Opening Ceremonies

I’ve just completed my second day of training for American Football and am so excited for the first round of games to begin tomorrow. My assignment is in Swiss Timing, which means that I’ll be keeping track of the most important parts of the game. With a friend I’ll be switching off between two jobs. The 1st is that I’ll be running the game clock as well as the score and the 2nd is that when someone scores it’s my job to record who scored and how they did. We were also lucky enough to attend the Opening Ceremonies and I’m at a loss for words to describe how it felt being so close to the action, watching representatives from each country walk across the stadium.  The national pride was palpable and the super loud cheers when the Polish team was announced gave me chills.

Many events kicked off today, among them one of the ultimate sports often associated with college in my mind: Flying Disc also known as Ultimate Frisbee. The game is similar

 'Flying Disc'

to football with the goal being to have one player catch the Frisbee in the end zone. What makes the sport very tough is that once a player catches the disc they are not permitted to continue running with it and must throw it to a teammate. If they do not complete the pass the other team gains possession. There are six teams competing at the World Games including the USA and the host nation Poland. Each will play all other teams once in qualifying with the top 4 advancing to the medal round. I was fortunate enough to attend part of the opening round of games and enjoyed the way players were able to strategically cut around the field as well as changing their throwing style depending on how they were being defended. Following the 1st set of games Canada, Colombia, and Australia are atop the leaderboard at 1-0.

We’ve now been in Poland for just about 2 days and I cannot wait for a lot more fun at the World Games and the excellent excursions that are planned in the country!

Grace

Our first two days of volunteering are in the books! After a day of recuperating from the 20+ hours of travel, we started our first full day in Wroclaw training for our volunteer site. It is very easy to travel around the city and it only took us a little under 30 minutes to walk from our dorms to the American Football venue where we will be helping out for the next few days. Upon arrival of the venue, we were greeted at the entrance by Jan, our supervisor who is a Wroclaw native. The venue is at Olympic Stadium, built in the 1920’s, was never actually used as an Olympic Games site. Brand new hallways and rooms were built specifically for the World Games with a lot of room for the volunteers, athletes, and judges. Most of the other volunteers we worked with were from Poland. Once the tour was over we were released for the day.

Day two consisted of two separate 8-hour shifts.  The American Football teams had the day to practice before the competition started. While they were practicing, volunteers helped with swiss timing, media, logistics and information. However, Maggie and I were asked to help out with Flying Disc (Ultimate Frisbee). Upon arrival we were asked to make sure spectators did not go onto the field and clean up any bottles thrown from the players.  It was great to watch and slowly learn the rules of the games and see how the different countries interacted with each other. In the first game Australia defeated Poland and in the second game Colombia defeated Japan.  The respect towards the opponent It was so great to see countries with different cultures have passion for the same sport.was really great to see.

My first thought about the Polish people was how calm everyone was. There is a sense of relaxation when we walked around the main square, Rynek Główny, in Old Town. 50% of the colorful buildings here were destroyed by Nazi Germany in World War II. The detail of restoration makes the buildings

look brand new. Wroclaw is also a very catholic town, as shown by the 72 different churches in the city. A group of us hiked to the top of St. Elizabeth’s which gave us a breathtaking view of the city along with legs that felt like jelly from the narrow spiral staircase. Including to the many churches there are over 350 dwarf monuments placed around the city. These dwarves first appeared in the early 2000’s to commemorate the Orange Alternative, Polish anti-communist movement. The dwarves sometimes reflect the part of the city they are placed in, such as a dwarf going to an ATM or one with two ice cream cones.

One of the unique sports played at the World Games is Canopy Piloting. Canopy Piloting is a type of parachuting air sport that tests a pilot’s ability to control their parachute through an obstacle course after jumping from a plane. The course is over a ‘swooping pond’, which consists of a large body of water and large buoys to fly around. The pilots are scored on their accuracy, speed, and landing. Men and women compete together and it is a relatively new sport to the World Games. Over the course of three days, each athlete competes in 7 rounds and ranked. Each ranking is combined for the final placement at the end of the three days. As of today, July 21, the top four finishers are American with fifth place from the UAE.