Road to Rio, literally.

I keep saying that the more you get and watch, the more addicted to the game you become. My friends say that I'm absolutely crazy about my teams, the ones I follow, and I want to prove you that... they are right! Showing my support for the the team on its way to the Olympics is one of my to do list this year. Actually it has been there for almost 4 years. Bad weather, thousands of kilometers can't stop me from doing what I do. You can ask Casey or Jacob and they will tell you the same. I want to make this post personal cause I feel like sharing my short story with you would be a great thing for civilization. Or just for  those of you who want to have a tournament-trip one day. Oh, and for me also cause throwing everything away from me would be a relief. Please - make notes just to not find yourselves in mine and Karolina's position in the future. Grab a beer and follow the text.

Everything started around August / September last year, when me and my friends suffered from after-Grand Slam depression. Sometimes living from the tournament to the tournament is the killer and we were there then. Just before the FIVB released the calendar for 2016 season, we had decided to go to at least two tournaments - one in Poland, obviously, and the other one - well... we would see. The girls and I were working and studying (ok, just me still studying) so try to imagine our faces when it came out that the Grand Slam in Olsztyn takes place at the worst time possible - June 14th-19th - the middle of my finals and girls' biggest work obligations. Of course we decided to go and see that event and our boys - Casey&Jake- playing there, no matter what the consequences would be. We still didn't know then that Olsztyn would be our smallest problem.

Judging by the calendar, we came up with an idea of going to Stavanger, Norway for the Swatch Major Series. The list of things to do was made, the flights, buses etc. were checked, hotel was booked and... the Federation decided Stavanger to host only CEV event this year. There was no point of going there as long as you know #TeamGibberson represents the US. The disappointment was kinda short, after a week there was another calendar with another stop. This time in The Netherlands. The city was unknown then but it didn't stop us from not following the flights and chacking the hotels, we had everything done. Apeldoorn or the Hague - the hostage city was not a problem any more. Shortly after we had marked all the points on our list as checked - the Federation cancelled the tournament. Again. They changed the date, the country and the problem for us was still growing. Hamburg, Germany had to host another Grand Slam, around June 7th-13th. We decided to not go there just because the second week of June would be the killer of our future and bank accounts. 'No job - no money - no life' chain or so. 

Still having that trip in our minds, we finally decided to go to Porec, Croatia.The event takes place June 28th - July 4th. We both have been there, the country is beautiful, the music is catchy and the food just delicious. I spent some time learning Serbian so the communication wouldn't be a problem at all. The things we struggled with were accommodation and the transport. When it comes to sleeping and eating, there would always be somebody to catch on the street and just ask for hotel or whatever but the transport... I talked to Jason, who's the coach of Canadian duo, and tried to get as much information as it was possible about the flights they had last summer. Well, a flight from Poland to Pula was impossible and spending basically 13 hours in the journey would be tiring. Even though I found some flights from Warsaw to Brussels then to Zagreb and finally Pula - with Karolina we decided to find a shorter way. Going from Warsaw to Zagreb by plane and then spending 8 hours in the train to Porec, or a village close to it, wasn't an option either. And selling our kidneys just to get to our destination.. neh. Porec is such a small city that finding anything apart from hiring a car was a huge problem! When the illumination about flying to Ljubljana, Slovenia came we knew that this was our only chance.

 

The flights were found, the hotel either. Karolina sent me the money and I just had to pay for it. As you may assume, not everything could end happily so... so when it finally came to paying for the tickets I got information that my bank doesn't belong to the list of accepted money transit institutions. I re-transferred the money to Karola's bank account and the next day she FINALLY managed to pay for the damn cards. We checked everything we had done that time, just to make sure that we wouldn't have problems any more. Of course there was, the small one. We got information that our room we booked is without a bathroom. This time also everything ended well but only after we spent hours of re-booking etc.

Problems with the flat forced us to take part in the Swatch Major Mascot Contest. Instead of sleeping after working the whole day and studying the rest of the evening, I was sitting home with a small pencil in my hand drawing the mascot that could fit the demands. When the Sandy was done, I also made a short presentation and after weeks of brain-storming with Karolina, we sent the project to Swatch. They postponed the deadline, what was stressful, but finally the information of the winning three mascots was released. We didn't find our Sandy there. I'm not afraid to admit I was pissed off cause they chose, literally a blue nothing, but we were fine with that. The Swatch Major Series team sent us the notebooks and letters of appreciation and here, we want to say thank you Swatch, but honestly - this black thing is my horcrux now :) I'm more powerful than this guy from Harry Potter people.

Coming back to the flat in Croatia. Walking everyday on foot to the courts wouldn't be fun so we decided to buy a little scooters. (Yes, guess who came up with that idea, and yes, you are right - me). After little storms, everything seemed to be perfect! We had felt relief till the time the scooters arrived. Our luggage was way too small to fit them. Buying new suitcases was the point! The problem was that the newest we bought were still too small... Karolina bought another one which was that big that the flight company calculated to charge us with PLN400 fine. It wasn't worth it so she's been trying to sell the luggage (mail me if you want to try smuggling somebody and you're looking for sth big to hide him/her). Scooters in the luggage and the wheels just next to them - it works! Our happiness couldn't have last long. The transport company from Slovenia mailed me that the bus from Porec back to Ljubljana is delayed 50 minutes so we've been living with the risk of missing our flight to Warsaw.

I've been wondering why everything has been going wrong and I just think that somebody is testing us. I'm stubborn and I can work for years just to get what I want and I'm pretty proud we haven't given up on that trip to see our boys playing one of the lasts tournaments before the Olympics. They're fighting on the court and we're just fighting with our wallets, flight companies, different countries. I think it doesn't only show how crazy I am, we are, but illustrates how the team should work, doesn't it?

Trying to finish the post slowly I've just realized that still more than a month left till the tournament and I'm a bit afraid what the upcoming days will bring. Really. I also figured out why I wrote this post - it is for you Casey and Jake. I just want to warn you. Do not you even try to skip any of those events, Olsztyn or Porec, cause I promise our friendship would struggle hard times then!


PS : We'll be uploading some photos and videos from the Grand Slam and Major so you can follow us on social media, but soon more to be said.
PS2: Casey and Jake - #TeamGibberson - play at the Moscow Grand Slam this week - May 24th-29th- so just keep your fingers crossed for us! Still need to strengthen our US Olympic Ranging leader position :)

     

the handball love from the first sight

Make a tea or grab an orange juice cause long post is coming. But keep reading, the boys I talk about are worth it!

I always talk about how much I love beach volleyball, how many tournaments I've seen so far or how fast my heart beats for the teams I support. This blog isn't only about beach madness, it's also about my craziness about other sports. Well, saying  other sports could be way too much. Frankly speaking, there're only two disciplines I can watch and never get bored, what's more - only two which bring really joy to my life. The first one you know, the second one is... handball.

So dear kids, let me tell you a short story after which you'll see the world from completely different perspective. Just kidding, you'll just realize how crazy and beautiful handball is. And I. Not beautiful just crazy.

Generally everything started shortly after Bogdan Wenta (hope you know this guy, if not - google him!) had become a head coach of the national team. His charisma and the way the way he spoke to the boys just bought me, totally. I've been following every game of those boys since then and the hunger for seeing more has been growing till today, event by event. When the national season ended I kept digging and looking for more. I bet you know that feeling when you're so damn into something that you cannot imagine yourself doing something else. Handball became my addiction like the biggest drug. 

It was (correct me if I'm wrong) season 2006/2007 when Wenta had taken SC Magdeburg under his wings. I had followed him then so thanks to the transfer I also started to follow SCM. What's more, Karol Bielecki, Bartek Jurecki or Grzesiek Tkaczyk- main players of the national team- also represented German club. Bundesliga became that one, main thing I watched all the time so I had an opportunity of seeing national team just cut into pieces. They were threw all around Germany, like Sławek Szmal in Rhein-Neckar Lowen or Marcin Lijewski in Flensburg so...they were just for the asking! Follwing the league had become my habbit and then the big times in the history of Polish handball happened.  

Handball was said, and I think still kinda is, to be male sport but do/did I look like I care about this? Not really, that's why World Championships in 2007 which took place in Germany, were like a pure blessing for me. Being glued to the TV set like bristlenoses are to the fish tank was the most normal thing a teenage girl could have done, right? I soaked every second of that sick game. When on the January 22, 2007 we beat Germany and won the first place in the group the real madness was going on here! Boys advanced to the next level of the Cup, we had some troubles with France and won 28:27 with Russia. Not to mention amazing semifinal with Denmark!  It was crazy rad! I still have goosebumps when I think about what happened on the January. Unfortunately, we lost in the final 24:29 to Germany but the pride I had was unmeasurable. Thanks to that tournament I was able to look at those boys from completely different point of view.  Each of them was an inseparable factor of the team. Spirit they had, faith and support they shared between them was so damn visible that you could wear a glasses just to not get blind from it. 

(Poland - Germany; pool-game)

(Poland-Russia; pool-game)

(Poland-Germany; final)

The Silver Boys made it to the Olympics in Beijing. We won the qualification tournament in Wrocław on the June 1st, 2008 so I took it as a birthday gift (I had bday 6 days later) and hoped for big things to happen that summer. The day the Olympic Games started was the day I also traveled to Croatia for holidays. I'm saying this not because I wanna tell you that Hrvatska is such a great place for vacation but to say that... that I took my TV set and set-top box just to watch my boys competing there in case they would not broadcast games of Poland in that beautiful country or my flat wouldn't have TV... 

Ending up on the 5th place broke my heart and soul a bit. Losing 30:32 to Iceland was like a knife just into the middle of my chest. I remember exactly that after this game for the first and the last time I said I would not watch handball any more. Yup, I just hadn't seen the game in two days then. Just a year after the Olympic Games in China, we managed to win the bronze medal in Croatia. I could write a lot about that tournament but the last minutes of the game between Poland and Norway say everything. 

I've make a shortcut about only three years, about only the beginning of history that has been being written since over a decade. I'm not doing this just to proudly show you my memory skills of remembering details of the games but I want you to change your attitude toward handball or make you fall in love in this sport just as I did years ago. I'm totally aware that many of you don't appreciate what those men do on the court, you don't see those fighters the way they should be seen. 

I may sound brutal but I know the truth. I meet new people every day and I see their faces when they hear 'handball'. Spending some time on the court showed me how complicated&simply in one or how brutal but beautiful that game is. Hours in the gym and then many more in front of the TV or much muuuch more in the sport halls are the hours at which that group of badasses just bought me. By they way they play, the way they talk to fans or journalists, they way the act on the court just convinced me that my heart should beat stronger for them and for handball.  I skipped many parts of the journey, especially the ones I cried a lot or when Bogdan Wenta stopped being a coach of the national team.

For over that decade I've seen hundreds of games and I've never regretted the time I spent in the trains, buses, cars. You know why? Because I know they will never let me down. Even if the result of the game isn't as we all want it to be I know&feel they did their best and literally left their hearts, health on the court. They made me cry many times and not every tear was the tear of happiness but this post can't be about tears. It has to be about passion. I'm not afraid or ashamed to say out loud that I love those boys, I'm kinda embarrassed (but still crazy proud) to admit that I was able to skip family ceremonies like weddings, birthday parties, anniversaries just to be in the hall 800 km from the place I live and support the team. I'm not mentioning the school or work days I just took off, because of the game dude. I know it's wildly terrible and maybe a bit sick but if I had been learning Serbian for 4 years just to talk to one person, why not to go to Hamburg to see my boys fighting like the biggest badasses on the planet? I just know they deserve it. One athlete once said that Polish national handball team is a bunch of total butchers and gladiators because they make their living by using their bodies on the court with an absolute awareness of getting injured. I couldn't say more. You simply need to have balls to play that sport! Now try to tell me they're not the he-mans and tough cookies... See? It's impossible! 

It's not all about sport as you may think. They are just great guys with big hearts, I can't recall the time any of them said no when it came to the charity action, taking a picture with kids and fans, giving an autograph on a picture or... singing up a diploma as a birthday gift. Honestly, I think it's just a mentality they have. Eh... I'd spend hours if I wanted to write everything what I should have post here but I assume you're getting bored so... Maybe next time fellas! 

Long story short. It was just an introduction to the things that are coming  to appear here on the blog. I was thinking about it for a long time, I wasn't sure about writing a word how it started etc but frankly speaking, I have a dream of handball  more appreciated, so the people who play it. Many of you are from the countries like US, where that sport isn't played and that's why I want you to get to it closer. Nobody said it would be easy but I like challenges and you'll have become the supporters of my boys till the August 5th. I can do it. 

PS : Thank you all for all those nice comments, tweets and e-mails about the last two or three posts. I do appreciate your words and all love you sent me. I didn't even know there are people in Qatar, 

New Zealand or Japan that read my blog. Thank you once again.

Xx