Sport through the lens

It’s Thursday evening, and I finished my third pizza in 3 days… yeah tell me about it :) But Thursday evening also means we are half way through. All 3 time trial races are behind us, and all three road races are infront of us… after (almost) free Friday.

Winner Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland

Surprisingly I’m not even tired, and I’m feeling a whole lot better then yesterday. Yesterday evening was pretty bad one. After working all day from 9:30am to about 7pm, with very little to drink, and with whole lot of hectic and running around, my head almost exploded. On top of that, I took small bag of gumibears, ugly rubber like candies, and since there was nothing else to eat in press center, I was eating that crap. Adding all day on sun with less then 1 liter of water, few coffees and nothing else in my stomach, those crappy candies did their work, and when we parked infront of pizza place, I was feeling like I would have really bad hangover. 

Photographers during Men Elite UCI Road cycling World Championships time trial race in Mendrisio

Today I learned my lesson, and took a bit more water with me. I also took my trusty old hat… hat which made me survive heat of all crazy places like hiking in Grand Canyon for 10 hours at +45c, traveling around South West of USA, Greece, Scandinavia etc. It sure look “a bit” used, but I like it, and it does its job :) So I survived todays sun pretty easy.

Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan is back

With only Men elite TT race on today’s schedule, day was pretty easy one. Sure it took 5 hours to get it through, but it was easy and timing was pretty cool. Riders had to finish 3 laps, which all together meant 49.8km, but start list was divided into 5 groups with 48min break between each group. First I wasn’t sure if this will be enough for groups not to mix between each other, but obviously they calculated these breaks pretty good, so there was actually 5 minutes breaks on road between last rider of one group and first rider of next one. This way our job was much easier, since sorting photos and writing captions is much easier this way, as it would be, if groups would be mixing.

Sebastian Lang of Germany riding during Men Elite UCI Road cycling World Championships time trial race

With 6 big International agencies as our clients, it means list of riders I don’t need to shoot is almost shorter then list of riders I do need to shoot. :) So today’s end result was 114 sent photos. With 66 riders on start list, 3 laps each, this is 198 photo chances. With 10fps, number of photos can go even higher :) But in reality, number is nowhere that huge. Today’s counter stopped at around 300 photos. It wouldn’t be that big, if I would know who will win. Well based on course, this was not really puzzle. Cancellara was pretty much only favorite, so I would actually dare to bet on him, but I guess winnings wouldn’t be really high, so I kept my non betting policy :) But it was a bit tricky to predict top 10, so to avoid unpleasant surprises when someone from beginning of start list would finish in top 10, I rather take photo or two of those, who most likely have no chance to finish high. Of course on the end, most of these photos get deleted, but I still ended with around 180 useful photos.

Marco Pinotti of Italy riding during Men Elite UCI Road cycling World Championships time trial race

Having 3 laps in single race is good and bad. Bad thing is, I end up with whole lot of photos. Good thing on the other side is, I end up with whole lot of photos. This way I can actually choose best possible ones, and next to that, I can send few different ones, so clients have more choice to pick the one which fits their story best. But even if there were 3 laps, and even if press shuttle was driving around constantly, which is normally not an option, I was staying on same spot for all 3 days. It sure is boring, but unfortunately TT race course was anything but picturesque, and there was only one at least kinda decent spot. So I tried to get out of that sport as much as possible, but even though I got about 6 or 7 different set of photos, it still feels a bit boring on the end. I can’t help it not to think I’m repeating myself. And that’s last thing I want to do.

Reginald Douglas of Saint Kitts and Nevis and his huge golden lion

But no matter what, I still have feeling, I do a bit better job then most of other guys around. I at least try to do things different. Yeah I know, I’m very modest, right? :) Well, check photos and you can see yourself if I managed to do things a bit different or not.

Jarmo Rissanen of Finland riding during Men Elite UCI Road cycling World Championships time trial race

Ufff… It’s getting late, it’s getting long, and it’s about time to get some sleep :) Rest of story, with some “statistics” will come tomorrow, when we have day off here in Mendrisio, and I will have some more time to do (even more) stupid things :) 

Winner Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland

And just for end, link to today’s photos, and have fun till tomorrow :)

Photos of Thursday’s Men elite WCH time trial race are in Photo SI on-line archive:
Road cycling World championships in Mendrisio – Men Elite time trial