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| Price: Free drinks for the Editors | No 2 Saturday July 29th 2000 | Independent - Provocative - Informative | |
Austrian's chef d'equipe, Roman "The Preserl", known as a rock where his lovelife is concerned, met a girl with whom he could run off to Gretna Green, or into Port (of marriage???) near Biel , where SHE lives: The lucky one, Noemi, Swiss studentrider, "made him sleep in her guestroom", Roman reported to his team which was already quite concerned about the unusual absence of their dutyful president.Team-member Luise was just about to call the hospital when he walked into his team's room. They were a little late for breakfast yesterday because they had to listen to Roman's explanation for quite a while...
Some people are tougher than others, as the world already knows. But Johanna from the Norwegian girl's team is the toughest where pain is concerned. Because she wrecked her old comfortable boots three days before the World Championships she had to ride with the leather boots she purchased in a hurry on the day of leaving for Switzerland. This is the result of her efforts in the first two rounds of dressage: Have a look at the photo and judge yourself if she ought to get the price for the best contenance of the competition or not.
When everybody sneaked to the showground on Friday morning for the jumping, FISU official and former studentrider Joep (NED) told us the secret why he is still in such a good shape after partying all night in spite of his age. The new father takes three boiled eggs (3:17 min!) and two glasses of "good old German apple schnaps". Then the order of taking this medicine is very important: First you have to start eating an egg, then drink one schnaps, eat again an egg, have the second schnaps and then finish breakfast with the last egg. If you mix the order, it won't work but if following the instruction, you will have to wait only seconds before you have to burp. After that everything is all right again, and the day can begin.
They arrived at the World Championships with a huge trunk full of an alcoholic speciality made of barley. But on Friday happened something that ruined all the team discipline: The Polish team ran out of vodka. The reasons for this unbelievable occasion are not revealed: "It's a shame, a goddam shame", were the only words of chef d'equipe Mike after finding out there was no bottle left. After he was found sleeping like a log on a bench in the tent, Polish team member Bartosz helped his team to find a supermarket within walking distance. But in the evening, WUEC news talked again to an absolutely shattered Mike. His team couldn't find a shop or fuel station which would sell them any liquor. This must be the most positive bit of news for the WUEC organizers.
Already in the night of Peter's (IRL) and Tonje's (NOR) wedding, the problems began. As written in yesterday's issue of WUEC news, they couldn't find a place for their first night. But then, when all this had come to a good end, somebody told the bride about the happy groom's past: Peter hadn't told his bride he had already been married at a student competition in 1998. Older studentriders may remember that his first wife was Sabina, the most honourable head of the organizing committee of WUEC in Bern 2000. Because he forgot to tell her about his first wife, Tonje was so furious that she wanted to annulate the marriage at once. Such was the situation before yesterday evening. But on the party, Peter obviously found ways to convince his wife not to run away. "Those moody fluctuations are normal with pregnant women and will be overcome as soon as the child is born", said gynaecologist-to-be Lumpi (GER), which shows another prove that they have already started to found a family.
On Friday it was again a very successful day for the Polish and German teams. Both countries got all their riders into the 2nd round, keeping the team competition still open. After a thrilling competition, which was sometimes interrupted by heavy rains, in the late afternoon the semi-finalists were determined. By jumping the only clear round in the quarter-finals, blond Italian Lorenza went on to the next round. The others are Kaja from Poland, German- adopted Clemens "Metti" (LUX) and Michel from Germany, who nearly caused speaker Uli H. (GER) a heart attack with his refusal at the combination. The whole party moved to the dressage arena for the third round, which was worth staying on for the rest of the time. In the end the lucky ones who made the semi-final were Luise from Austria, Sophie (GBR), Marc from the German team and Annicken "Miss Heineken" for Norway. At the end of an otherwise nice presentation Joëlle (LUX) had reason to be disappointed because she did another unvoluntary Caprilli test out of the 20x40 arena, imitating Olga (RUS).
a gala dinner, a nice party, many improved international relationships (e.g. ALG-JPN, GER-NOR), the most prominent clown from German studentriding (Hannes J.) and many more things we did not dare to publish here ... For those who miss gossip about new love affairs here, there were so many "baggers" with big shovels at work - we simply couldn't cope...
Your editors,
Uli H. (GER) and Andreas (SUI)
