I should explaing. I won these mostly by simply turning up! Track and Field medals are awarded, for participants over 35, in 5-year age bands, so although I was participating at the same time as everyone else my results were ranked within just the 55-59 age range, in which there were inevitably rather few athletes. In the hammer throw, nobody else in my age range competed at all, however I still felt quite happy in achieving four shortish throws without the hammer ending up in the net around the throwing cage, and without killing any unfortunate passers-by! This secured me a gold medal despite my distance being shorter than any other participant in the other age ranges.
Similarly there were only three 55-59-year-olds in the javelin, shot putt and long jump, so I duly slotted in in last place and grabbed bronze medals. I also had a go at the 100 metres, 200 metres and discus, but alas there were four participants in these, so I finished, as they say, "just outside the medals".
The best that can be said was that I did at least beat a couple of younger participants in a couple of events. And just actually doing all these strange events was a personal challenge for me. To some extent I was facing personal demons from awful sports days when I was a boy (I was certainly no athlete!) and exorcising them. Sport is fun even if you're no good, as long as you are able to compete in a safe and non-judgmental environment, and that's what the gay sports movement provides, and why it feels so important to me. I det my "personal bests" and maybe I'll have another go next year, and try and improve. Maybe even beat another guy in my age range next time.
Impressions of Rotterdam and the Eurogames
- all modern architecture (the city centre was flattened by the Nazis during the war)
- chaos outside the Central Station due to major metro construction, but good transport apart from that
- great hosts housing me, she a community theatre director, he an artist, both kind and funny and left-leaning
- you don't realise this is still the biggest port in Europe and 3rd biggest in the world till you do a boat trip
- less cultural stuff seemed to be going on at these Eurogames
- Kate Ryan's performance at the opening ceremony and those of BABY and Sister Sledge at the closing
ceremony were pretty good, but both ceremonies lacked atmosphere somewhat
- briefly visited the badminton, the basketball and peeped in at the ballroom dancing
Next year - Belgrade - maybe I'll go?
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