Old Summer Palace and first game for the Uni Blues

Day 3
Monday, 10 March

Those used to sleeping in late had to forgo the luxury to allow for extra delays in the hectic Beijing traffic on the way to the Old Summer Palace.

The ancient ruins of the Old Summer Palace are in parts sad and exhilarating, knowing on one hand the English/French invading forces had burnt the palace to the ground in 1860 but on the other, the dynasty at the time had enjoyed such opulent surroundings.

Group shots started as a fun novelty and slowly became more difficult as attention spans waned. Passers-by joined in to take photos of the tall Westerners in our distinctive blue uniforms.

We made the most of exploring the palace and moved on to a Shanghai style lunch, a mainly vegetarian spread we all enjoyed.

Tour guide Roland gave us the first glimpse of what to expect of Tsinghua University when he pointed out the student housing – rows and rows of apartment blocks at least 20 stories high that seemed to stretch to Shanghai.
The campus was an incredible sight, made even more impressive by the new sports stadiums built for the upcoming Olympics. We gathered for a group shot in the new $2 million indoor pool, one of the training sites for the Games, and also took in the sight of a multi-purpose outdoor stadium still in construction.

Director of Physical Education, Professor Chen Wei Qiang, told the group  a former student of Tsinghua University the President of Chinese airline Dragon Air had poured almost $200 million into sports facilities at the university, another feat Australian universities would love to reproduce.

Our venue for the first game of the tour turned out to look less impressive than the new stadiums but had a more interesting history. The 100-year-old sports building used to house Mao Zedong’s swimming pool and volleyball players suited up in the same space where the Chairman would have swum laps. A slightly rough floor and uneven lighting seemed like unnecessary quibbles in the face of such history.

MATCH REPORT

The Tsinghua team had some tall timber and showed in their warm-up they also had power and speed to match. Uni Blues had the advantage of numbers, strong serving  and the 205cm centre Michael “Micka” Werner.
The Blues started slowly, early nerves causing problems with their passing game but players such as Tom Hals helped to steady the team with strong serving and spiking. Tsinghua’s gaps in blocking allowed the Blues to use their strength in spiking to take the first set 25-16.

The second set was tighter, the opposition closing the gaps and finding flaws in the Blues’ defence to steal the set 19-25. Head coach Mrs Shen drilled into the team the need to keep moving throughout play and players responded, Hals and Chris Lyne setting up passages of play for an amazing 25-13 set win. Tsinghua took the fourth 19-25 and the stage was set for a blinding finish. The Blues kept their heads in the final set, Kyle Griffith, Paul Deweerd and others helping to push the side to a 15-10 win.

COACHES COMMENTS

Mrs Shen: This was a friendly game and we wanted it make sure that it was in a friendly spirit. I swapped a lot of people as I want everyone to get a chance to play these teams. Overall I was very happy with the game. The other coach said we had good skills and good experience. We made very good blocks and good spikes. The other team is number 3 in Beijing universities.