Come try your shooting skills on the laser pistol in our 50/50 contest!

You are invited to pre-dinner drinks to support the 2012 Olympic bid of Donna Vakalis, two-time Canadian National Champion in
Pentathlon. Donna is one of Canada’s leading athletes in Modern Pentathlon and is in the closing stages of the race to qualify for the
London Olympics. We are raising funds to support Donna in competition over the next few weeks to secure one of the final places to
compete for Canada!!!
Come to the upper level event room Riz North (3323 Yonge Street, North of Lawrence, cash bar) from 6.00 to 8.00pm on Saturday 21st January, 2012 to meet Donna, learn about Modern Pentathlon (we don’t know what it is either!) and enjoy a drink & some hors d’oeuvres
while we are entertained by Murray Foster.

Here is a link to highlights from the competition. Want to see me ride? Go to this page and find “Riding Highlights from Women’s World Cup 4 Final” then skip ahead to minute 4.  Yes, that is me without stirrups… http://www.pentathlon.org/media-centre/multimedia/pentathlon-tv?category=

Alas, I get to re-focus my training and rest up for the next World Cup in Rostov-on-Don.

Number of Nations competing  11

Points on the World Ranking List toward Olympic qualification for first place finish: 40

Rank of top Canadian athlete: 1

Happiness levels of said athlete: 100%

*UPDATE: see article with videos and witty commentary by JER here on Eventing Nation

REASON #1:  WELCOMING COMMITTEE

The adventure began at the airport. I arrived in Guatemala City after an unanticipated 20 hour travel day complete with mechanical breakdowns in one plane and a last-minute reticketing to avoid an overnight in Houston, Texas… So what a wonderful surprise to be greeted at the airport by an entire Guatemalan family—Mom, Dad and three daughters—who folded all my pentahlon gear and the six of us into their compact car.   This is not your typical welcoming committee at an international competition, no scratch that, at any competition.  I feel like I have an instant family in a country in which I’ve spent all of ten minutes.

REASON #2: FIESTA

Competition are never hostile environments, but the atmosphere leading up to this competition is almost anti-competitive. The women from all over (Cuba, Argentina, USA, Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, and and and) are supportive. We are all here with goals of gaining points to climb the World Ranking List. The first place and second place women, whomever they turn out to be, will gain enough points to her in her quest for an Olympic berth.  Maybe it is the beautiful weather or the pan-american continental solidarity… Even with the significant prize on the line, there is a hint of fiesta in the air.

REASON #3: TRUCKS O’ HORSES

I wish I had a picture of this.  We are at the riding venue and a green pick up truck reverses so that it backs up flush with a concrete platform.  The pick up truck has a special modification so that its truck bed has extra high ‘walls’, about 5 feet tall, of green steel railing. Oh, and there are ten horses stacked neatly in the back.   Ten horses, calmly being driven down the bumpy roads of Guatemala City, their curiousness limited to cooly checking out the foreign pentathletes as they (the horses) pull into the venue.   These horses will be unloaded from the pick up truck and marched down the platform to get warmed up for jumping.

Lot of information can be found on the CAC website here: http://www.cleanairchampions.ca/index.php

Including the booking form here: http://www.cleanairchampions.ca/champions/book_a_champion.php

Not Forest Appeals Commission.

Not Firearms Academy Canada; not Financement Agricole Canada; nor Fondation Acturiel, nor First Alliance Church…

Just FAC.

Is that not one of the best horse names you’ve every heard?  His name was FAC and he was an amazing horse. He gave me the gift of a clear round. And as if that weren’t enough, he lead me to learn the name of that webbed space between your middle finger and fourth finger: the plica interdigitalis (or interdigital folds if you insist on English).   Here goes my caveman Latin: sanguinum plica interdigitalis  Gratias FAC

Um, if you want to see more than my digitalis, you can check out our performance (including the pre-course preparatory poop by senior Fac) here on You Tube.