Day 80

Tuesday April 8th

The fighting starts today, but not for me. I don't start until tomorrow. The day started out at 9:00 AM when we woke up to go weight in. As soon became the norm in Mansura, we were stuck waiting for the coaches for a good 20 minutes in the lobby before they showed up. Taylor, the other American and I really didn't know where the match was held or really anything that was going on, but when the coaches and our other teammates came down we all loaded into two cabs and headed out. It turned out the competition was being held at Mansura University, which actually looks like a university. The campus has fields and trees and open spaces and there were girls practicing soccer to our right as we came in. The interesting thing is that they all had matching yellow hijabs as part of their uniform. In fact, in our entire time in Mansura I think we saw less than 5 women who weren't wearing the hijab. These were probably the copts that lived here.

Anyways, as we got into the gym I was relieved to see that their was actually a legitimate boxing ring. I was kind of expecting to just see a gladiator-type pit where everyone would stand above and cheer us on. I mean granted that would have been cool too, but I finally at ease knowing that this tournament had some legitimacy.

The key word in that sentence is some, because rather then going in and getting weighted at a scheduled time we instead got to watch the opening ceremonies. I mean, this is Boxing Nationals for Egypt, so an opening ceremony should be expected. We actually got their early enough to watch the rehearsal for the opening ceremony. This consisted of I am assuming chosen representatives from the team or maybe from the university who volunteered, who goose-step marched into the gym, mind you not following the beat or having any coordination and then marching around the interior of the gym. They were supposed to keep the same distance, but they didn't and some people took the goose-stepping much more serious then others, so it looked like amateur hour. Also they had people leading them around the entire time showing them where to step and where to go. Then they did the National Anthem and then the procession of teams. The Teams were announced over the loud speaker as they walked by where the judges would sit, and they had a girl in a hijab with a circular what looked like cardboard sign that had the name of the university on it. We didn't have one, either because we signed up too late or just didn't care. The Canadian university didn't have one either.

Granted, this was just the rehearsal. But after they finished with it, they just had the people go back outside, the judges and other dignitaries walked in, and they did the exact same thing. They looked just as bad and still had to have people showing them where to go, so it still looked awful and poorly done. Oh well.

Next came more waiting. After the ceremonies everybody rushed down to weigh in room and then just waited around. Whoever was in charge didn't have any system already planned so people were just waiting around. It became a mosh-pit almost as coaches squeezed in trying to get their teams as the next to weighed. Finally, after a couple of hours a legitmate system was organized with a line (a novelty in egypt) where they would call the university to stand in line, have some guy check to your heart with a stethoscope (I am assuming he was checking whether we had a heart or not, because he didn't seem like he knew how to check for an irregular heart-beat and he wasn't checking our pulse) then we weighed in. Since I didn't know my the weight classes before, I didn't bother trying to stay below any number. It turns out I weighed 77 kilos, which put me in the 75-81 kg class. If I had just not eaten dinner the night before I could have been in the lower weight class. Oh well, I didn't know and honestly didn't really care.

Following weighing in, we went back to our hotel. Our hotel was actually quite nice. It was called the Marshall and clean beds and bathrooms (with toilet paper), a tv, and a mini fridge. When we got back we ate lunch. This was my favorite part of the meal, since it was a university trip, everything was free. I think over the three days that I was there I spent maybe 15 pounds (by picking up batteries for one of the teammates and just buying snack food when we would wait at the boxing for like hours.)

Taylor would fight that night, so we waited around their until like 5 (we slept) and then headed off to the university. Taylor wouldn't box until 10 Primetime. We got there and had to weight forever. I didn't bring my books either because I thought his fight would be at 6 or 7.

Taylors fight was hilarious. As we had a lot of time to watch other people, we knew we were in over our heads. Taylor just barely made his weight class, and its not because he is in perfect shape. If he really trained he could be in at least one weight class lower maybe even more. We had also been training for only 2 hours a week (one which one was conditioning) for the past few months. These people had been training for years. They were really good. Taylor and I realized that if were simply to make it out of there without getting hurt we would be happy.

I had noticed the guy who Taylor was boxing before we knew he was Taylor's opponent. He was the guy that wears the knee socks, who you know is either a tool, making fun of tools, or actually a badass. Not only that he was fast and probably just made the weight class, but not because he was fat. This man was 91 kilos of pure muscle. Needless to say, Taylor got worked. This guy didn't bother messing around he just went straight at Taylor. Poor Taylor stood his ground but got crushed. The ref called it after 45 seconds in order to save Taylor from getting knocked out.

But the key thing was, Taylor didn't get injured, which is all that matters. We went back and ate dinner and laughed about how badly Taylor got destroyed by aptly named Xerses. We were counting on our height to save us, but this didn't happen here.