Rio Grand Slam

Well its 5:45 am on Friday 21 May and I’ve been up since 3. Thought I had gotten used to adjusting to jetlag with travel but after falling asleep at 8:30 last night I was bound to wake up mighty early.
Things here in Rio are good. I have been here before, 2007 Worlds where I had one of my best results (11th) so I have fond memories of this place. There is a team of 12 from Australia and everyone is pumped for the competition. There is apparently 43 countries here and over 400 fighters, this is gonna be tough! I fight in just over 24 hours and I am feeling really excited. My lead up to this has been great and I am in as good a shape, probably better then ever.
It’s weird that I was nervous travelling over here wondering who is going to be here, how will I match up? But now that I know that the absolute best fighters are here I am actually calm and interested to see how it’s going to pan out. This will be the ultimate measuring stick. By the end of the Rio Grand Slam, training camp and Sao Paulo World Cup I will know exactly where I stand in the 66 kg food chain.
Training here in Brasil has been good we have had good, sharp sessions wed, thurs and will have another one this afternoon. Just been focussing on speed work and sweating the weight off. That part has gone really smoothly. Just weighed 1.8 over but I feel well hydrated so that is good. The more often I cut the better I seem to get at it, or maybe I just get a tolerance to the feelings of hunger, thirst and the games your brain play on you in the process.
Today’s plan is small breaky then sweaty run midmorning. Small lunch and sauna off the rest of the weight in afternoon/evening. If that goes well and I am underweight I might even have dinner, fingers crossed.
By the time we get back from training this afternoon the draw will be done and we’ll all know who we are fighting. The meat head in me wants to fight one of the Japanese, Cubans, Brasilians, French etc and fight for my life but the little voice in the back of my head is saying maybe an easier first round makes more sense. But who knows? I am unseeded here so I am just as likely to get a world beater as I am to get a more winnable opponent (there are no EASY fights at this level).
Fingers crossed it all goes well. I doubt I’ll add anything else before the comp so hopefully my next entry is me bragging about the amount of butt I kicked at Maracanazinho on Saturday 22 may.
If you want to follow it all live you can go to ippon.org or video link will be on eju.net look for JUDOTV link.

Ivo