U.K.A.T. World Championships, part 2

 - the road to the Czech Republic

The preparations were complete. Both in terms of training and the trip itself. I was responsible for the former, and my dear wife for the rest, something I am deeply grateful for. All that remained was the packing. It was quite a lot of work, to put it mildly.

It tends to be like that if you are going to be away for a few weeks and engaging in various activities. Everything from visiting restaurants to training and competing. Then you never know with the weather. Some rain gear and a rain jacket must be brought with you; otherwise, you can expect it to rain for three days. The latter would turn out to be completely pointless. But we didn't know that at the time. 

The most important packing item, of course, was competition equipment in the form of axes and knives. Both mine and Mrs. C's, and also sets for rotation, no spin, and some extra sets. It was heavy but very legal as it turned out. My planning-savvy wife had, of course, checked in advance if/where/and how permits were needed to cross borders with such items in our luggage.

The Swedish police were very nice, could not answer this somewhat odd request right away, but gave the direct number to the weapons department, who mostly wished us good luck in the competition. It felt good to have them on our side.

We didn't have to hurry. When we arrived, the trucks were lined up.

The first stop was Trelleborg, and we got there quickly. Completely unnecessary, as the ferry to Rostock was three hours late. This was due to strong winds. There was a straight headwind of 36 knots, which, together with the ferry's speed, gave a relative wind speed of 57 knots, a board in the foyer showed. A wind speed that also increased in the bow, where the superstructure was leaning. An awesome experience was trying to stand there, which of course I did. Strangely enough, there were no waves to speak of and the sun was shining.

It's barely visible, but the wind combined with the ferry's movement produced winds of over 100 km/h or 57 knots.

It wasn't on the autobahn, waves that is. That was the main experience on day two. Or rather, it was the heat we remember. The traffic was moderately intense. After a night in a hotel down in the harbor, we would travel around eight hundred km to the Czech Republic and the destination Hradec Králové, so we just had to get going. Not exactly easy as it was the first day of the heat wave in this part of Europe, and thus 35 degrees in the shade. This meant that the car reached well over forty degrees because the AC is broken and you can't roll down the windows at 140km/h on the autobahn. A bit of a nightmare experience. We were sweating in layers, I can say.

But we only arrived after driving into Poland and not least passing about a hundred roadworks in the Czech Republic and learning what "Pozor" means. It is written on warning triangles about every hundred meters and everywhere. God knows what they warn about, but something was that draws attention a lot and often, and requires a sign or two.

The hotel was centrally located and was relatively cozy, although quite cramped. Especially with all that packing. It would turn out that we were not the only competitors in the hotel, even though it was small with few rooms.

The square in Radek Kralove

So it was Thursday, and it was time to head out to the competition site, which consisted of a combination of camping and outdoor recreation area located about five kilometers from the center. A large one, and of course, we parked at the wrong end on the first day and had to walk a long way. The competitions were to take place in a fenced-off part of the area. There were plenty of both competition targets and a good-sized warm-up area, which, however, became crowded in the first half of the first day. Then it thinned out during the competitions due to the very noticeable heat.

Closest to the camera are the competition area and, in the background, the warm-up section.

The first step in a competition is always weighing and measuring the equipment. Everything went well until it came to my brand-new axes. The Rinaldi axes customized by Throwingzone. Since they are hand-ground, one of the edges was apparently about three millimeters too long. Something that first caused a bit of panic, then a while of hysterical filing with the tools I had. It felt a bit crazy to have to start modding them right away. Even more so when I later saw an older man throwing with double-edged axes, which is directly against the rules.

Time for the first point of the competition, weighing in and measuring the competition equipment.

After all the equipment had received a red dot marking it as approved, it was time to soak up the atmosphere and greet everyone and everything. Those you know, those you should know, and those you want to get to know. There was, of course, the Swedish representation, but also gentlemen and ladies you had met before at the Soul Thrower Open and others you had either not seen at all or only on YouTube.

Opening and welcoming speech by Radim Drtílek

In total, there were around 150 competitors from no less than 21 nations. A respectable number that could have even included a few more, as it turned out later. The most distant ones were from Australia, South Korea (although the country is represented by an American), the USA, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Overall, everything felt good for me, although of course, there was a certain amount of tension. I was actually more excited than nervous. I didn't have any specific goals right away, except that I wanted to perform well. I possibly harbored a hope that my bad competition nerves would somehow miraculously give way. On that front, I can reveal, things went both well and badly.

I have to praise the arrangement of starting day one with "Games," it made it possible to relax a bit and get into the throwing. At least I hoped it would be that way.

On the first day's program were disciplines such as Silhouette, Moving Target, Speed Throwing, Plank, and the brand new Hunter, as well as qualifications for duel throwing and Couteanque.

In the next part of the story, I intend to dive a little deeper into how it all developed. Both day one with games and days two and three with the main disciplines, Walk Back, Precision, and distance.

/ J - finally in place