OLYMPIC
SOLIDARITY CAMP EUROPE REPORT
Claude
Meyer, the ITU Solidarity Coach for Europe reports:
After changing the location for the camp from Athens
to Tiszaújváros, we decided to start
the camp on 20th July, as the first event of the Triathlon
week, which would finish with the Tiszaujvaros ITU
World Cup on Sunday, 28 July 2002.
We
were able to organize all of the training sessions
at the great facilities of the TVKclub. We slept in
the Garden Pension, where we had a wonderful time
and found a "new mother" (Judit, the mother
of Gergely Márkus) who cared for us like we
were her own children. We had a lots of pleasure and
a lot of cake and sweets after each dinner.
Activities
in the city were organised by "our new father",
Gábor Márkus. There was a different
race each evening including a 2km run, bike race,
triathlon, and duathlon. As well, there was a concert
each night in the central square of Tiszaújváros.
The
camp was fortunate to have 2 elite athletes from France
attend and support the young participant: Sebastien
Berlier, the Junior World Champion and Guillaume Dechavanne,
besides myself, we had 3 coaches from Bulgaria, Portugal
and our hostess-athlete coach Petra Harangi from Hungary.
We had 17 athletes from 10 countries, aged between
16-22 years who took part in the camp.
Overall,
the camp was highly successful, and we would recommend
for all athletes and coaches to hold training here
in Tiszújváros before the next World
Cup event!
A
special thank you to the TVK Club and the Markus family
for the outstanding work they are doing for Triathlon,
and for hosting this first-ever Olympic Solidarity
in Europe.
