Evendays

So Alinghi did take the America’s Cup earlier in the week, though the Swiss consortium had only one Swiss on-board. But like I wrote earlier, it is a Swiss boat.

Saturday featured the prologue of the Tour de France, in London. The Swiss Fabian Cancellara won with a huge 12 second margin, keeping his promise to wear yellow for today’s first stage. He’ll most probably keep it during the first few days when the stage victories are “reserved” for the sprinters. Who will win it this year? Not Basso, Landis, Ulrich… The list goes on.

Today, the Swiss Roger Federer will be playing to win his 5th straight Wimbledon Championship against el Señor Nadal. Promises to be no picnic on the grass…

All good things to celebrate. But nothing as good as celebrating this Sunday the living Lord.

All sport lovers in this small country are focused on Valencia, Spain and London, England. I guess that means they are cross-eyed.

The Swiss sailing enterprise Alinghi (the first European team to ever win the America’s Cup) is defending its trophy against Team New Zealand. It’s a best of 9 series, with the two teams tied one to one. The Alinghi boat was fabricated in close collaboration with Lausanne’s technical institute (where Daughter plans to study).

Between rain showers, Roger Federer will attempt to win his fifth consecutive Wimbledon Men’s singles title. After a frustrating loss to Rafael Nadal in the Roland Garros final in Paris a few weeks back, Roger is in fine form and ready to tie Bjorn Borg’s record.

That’s all from ESPNNN Switzerland. (Oh, and how ‘bout those Angels?)

The French Open (Roland Garros) started on Sunday and will continue for 15 days. The question here for the avid and not so avid tennis fan in central Europe is simple: Are you Nadal or Federer?

For those of you out of the tennis loop, Raphael Nadal is the mega-bicepped Spanish clay-court specialist who has won this Grand Slam tournament the last two years. He had won 81 straight matches on “terre battue” (clay) before the number-one-in-the-world, Roger Federer, took him down two weeks ago… The first time the Swiss (did I mention Federer is Swiss?) had ever beaten the Spaniard on clay.

Tension runs high here as Son 2 and Daughter root for Roger who’s won every other Major but Roland Garros. He has a huge following not only because he’s good, but he’s just so… NICE! But during matches, I can hardly stay in the room when the points are important. It’s as tense as an episode of Gilligan’s Island.

Since both Roddick and Blake are already out, why not noisily applaud or encourage Roger? My kids would appreciate it. And if you cheer in English, that’s okay. The champ’s trilingual.

They ran like the wind on Saturday afternoon. It was unseasonably warm, so the times were about 90 seconds slower than expected, but they managed the hills and the 10K (6 miles) while some of us just watched, cheered and clapped, snapping off the quick picture or two.

Wife finished in 49:27, 11th out of 169 in her category. It was her first “out-of-the-top-10” finish in a while, but she was competing with younger ladies.

Son 2 cleaned up with a 41:50, finishing 28th out of 226 in his category. I can just run 8K in that same time period. Which means he is that little speck off in the distance…

Congratulations to both of you! May God give you many more kilometers on the road of life.

I hope it’s all downhill from here… Wait, what I meant was…

 

We woke up this morning to clear skies and temperatures in the high 30’s. Just 10 days ago, Wife was running the half marathon of Lausanne in 80-degree weather. Too hot to do her best time, but she crossed the line in 1 hour, 46 minutes, 30 seconds (click here… she’s in the grey shirt). Not bad for over 13 miles! (She was actually credited with an aggregate time about 5 seconds faster because they start individual times as you cross the starting line).

After church, she caught a train to a village exactly 13 miles away. From there, the participants run back to Lausanne, finishing the race in front of the Olympic Museum on the shores of Lake Leman. It’s not an easy run (I know this for a fact. I’ve ridden it on my bike), for the road is seldom flat as it follows the shoreline through the wine country of “Lavaux”.

Several thousand runners participated in her race this year. We love arriving at the finish line just early enough to cheer her on, which we do with so much vigor that, frankly, we’re exhausted by the time we get home.

Those half marathons are tough.

After our morning worship and the monthly pancake lunch, I pumped up the bike tires and Wife and I headed down to the 2006 Triathlon World Championships in Lausanne.

The competition consisted of a 1500 meter in-the-lake swim (about 1 mile), a 40k bike “ride” through town (completing the same loop 7 times, with a 12% climb—and descent—in each loop), and a 10k (flat) run for the finish… All completed in well under 2 hours (the time it would take me to dog-paddle the mile swim).

We missed the morning’s women’s race but got there in time to see the men bike by. Two Swiss were in the first group of about 12 riders, but they couldn’t keep up with the Brit Tim Don who finished first.

We were not only impressed by the athletes, but also by the crowd. They were the fittest 60,000 people we’d ever been with. You could tell who the tri-athletes were: Often tall, always thin (gaunt?), they had black numbers stenciled on their biceps and thighs.

We’ll miss next year’s World Championships which take place in Hamburg. But if you want to come and just try this year’s Lausanne course, just give us a call. And I’ll pump up the tires for you… And stencil your biceps…