Sport through the lens

Friday is day off on UCI road cycling World championships in Mendrisio, Switzerland. Time trial races are behind us, and road races are infront of us. 

Busy press center after men elite time trial race

It’s time for short recap of last 2 days of racing (plus a day on road). At the moment it’s raining, so there’s nothing much to do here in Mendrisio. Trip to Como or Lugano is out of question in such weather, especially since I’m a little bit concerned about this rain going on for next two days. Since I will have to be out on Saturday and Sunday no matter what weather there will be, I can choose to stay in and be dry at least today :) So I’m sitting in press center, killing time with stupid things like Facebook, and this blog of course :) and watching TV with stationary camera from rainy start/finish line.

Tatiana Guderzo of Italy riding during women UCI Road cycling World Championships time trial race

But since I wrote yesterday about publishing some “statistics” I will really do this. On day one there was nothing else then approximately 600km and 5 hours drive. With no traffic jams on Italian roads, this looked almost like miracle. But obviously this was sort of good sign for this years WCH. Until now, everything went fine, and that’s pretty surprising for UCI ;) I don’t have anything to complain, except that it’s almost impossible to explain, that even if I’m coming from Slovenia, we are actually working for agencies covering more then 250 million people market, and we are really not in same class as some web blog, so we would need one of 25 photo bibs with some extra priority. So this way we are stuck in second 25 bibs class, but based on discussion I just head with UCI marketing and press director, we will probably get one of those 25 green photo bibs, which will allow us a bit better access to finish line. For everything else it doesn’t really matter anyway.

Third placed Patrick Gretsch of Germany riding during men U23 UCI Road cycling World Championships time trial race

So to be honest, I’m hoping everything will continue same way also on Saturday and Sunday, an I will be really surprised as this would be first road cycling WCH which would go through without any problems. Pretty unbelievable, right? I hope it will finally happen :)

Julie Beveridge of Canada riding during women UCI Road cycling World Championships time trial rac

I also promised, I will write something about press center. Internet is unbelievable fast, and on top of that it’s for free. I have seen such fast internet only on Austrian alpine ski races, but there it wasn’t free until 2009/10 season. Until last year price was 18eur/day, and last season they dropped prices to 10eur/day, while this year they are promising it will be for free for AIPS members. Everywhere else, we are normally struggling with speed from 1kbps to 100kbps at most. Here I’m uploading with 40+ Mbps, so photos are on other side sooner then I could finish my coffee.

Internet in press center

But this press center, at least section where photographers are located, has also few other strange and funny things. One of them is huge lightbox above us. It works only on sunny days, but it’s still annoying. Photographers part is located in big tent next to gym hall where main press center is located, and on sunny day white tent roof works as huge lightbox, so editing photos on already crappy Macbook Pro monitor with huge lightbox above your head is pain in the ass. But everything is much more cosy on evenings, when we get real street light in here :) It’s one of most funny things I saw, and everyone, who are still here at such times are having great fun because of this.

Street lightning in press center

What else? Statistics of course :P

Kilometers done traveling to Mendrisio: 600
Hours on road (traveling of course): about 5
Kilometers done coming from hotel to press center and back: 120 until now
Time spent on roads of Mendrisio (shooting this time):  13
Photos done: 540 (approximately 3GB)
Photos sent: 238 (approximately 600MB)

Start list of Women Elite UCI Road cycling World Championships road race in Mendrisio

Anything else you want to know? ;)