Princeton University Athletics
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Track & Field Chronicles from Greece
June 17, 2011 | Men's Track and Field, Women's Track and Field
Academic Athletic Fellow Phil Felton sends updates/photos of the track & field team's trip in Greece.
Wednesday, June 15: We arrived late in Athens as a result of having to change our plane. When we arrived we found that there was a general strike in progress and demonstrations taking place outside Parliament, which is located next to our intended hotel. The roads were closed near our hotel so plan B was to head to another hotel about two hours from the city in Nauplia, where we're having a pleasant evening. We're off to train at the local track tomorrow morning and if the situation has cleared up in the city, as expected, we'll be off to Athens to resume our itinerary. We had the unexpected bonus of stopping for a view of the the Corinth canal, drove near Mycenae and are within a mile of the ruined fortress of Tiryns ('well walled Tiryns' : Homer).
Thursday, June 16: Plan B worked well, today we worked out at the Nauplia town track just a few minutes from the hotel, with a Venetian fort in the background!
We returned to Athens after practice with only some light protests going on at the Parliament. This afternoon we went to the Acropolis and Acropolis museum, attached is a photo of the two teams in front of the Parthenon. This evening there was some more demonstrating at Parliament which we can see from our hotel, it appeared more good natured today.
Friday, June 17: Today we went to the track for a pre-meet practice the men's team ran an intrasquad distance medley relay (200-300-400-800m) involving all the runners which was very keenly contested with all the teams closely packed coming down the final straight. Everyone's looking forward to the international meet in Patras on Wednesday which should be very competitve. After practice we went to the beach (to the east of Athens) for some recovery, as you can see from the photo a good time was had by all. Tomorrow we will be taking a boat trip to three of the Saronic Islands: Aegina, Hydra and Poros.
Sunday, June 19: After the trip to the beach we had an evening meal at a taverna with traditional Greek dancing and music. The next day was our long cruise in the Saronic gulf, our first stop was at Hydra which was everyone's favorite. It's a beautiful island with no cars. A favorite activity was some cliff diving, as you can see in the accompany photo of Coach Samara demonstrating good form. After the cruise the teams had dinner at the Athens Yacht Club.
Cultural activities continued on Sunday with at bus trip to Delphi which is a spectacular location near Mount Parnassus. There we visited the ruins and archeological sites of the Oracle, the Temple of Apollo, the theatre and the stadium which was the site of the ancient Pythian Games, followed by a visit to the Delphi museum. After lunch we continued our journey to Patras where we will stay to prepare for the international track meet we will participate in on Wednesday. To get there we crossed the Gulf of Corinth via the Rio-Antimo bridge, the longest bridge in Europe which was completed in 2004 for the Olympic Games. Several members of the team who had taken Prof Billington's "Bridges" course were able to impress the rest of us with their knowledge of cable stayed construction, etc. Tomorrow preparation for the meet will continue along with a trip to Olympia.
The Olympic Stadium from 1896 in Athens. Taken from the top floor of team's hotel. They were preparing for the opening ceremonies for the Special Olympics later in the month.
Monday, June 20: We had a great visit to Olympia on Monday, site of the ancient Olympic Games which were dedicated to Apollo. Apart from seeing the ruins of Apollo's temple and the athletes training areas we were able to visit the original track and even run on it. After the visit we had lunch at the Amalia Hotel Olympia and relaxed by the pool before returning to Patras to prepare for the track meet
on Wednesday.
We were able to run a race on the track over the Olympic distance of one stadia. Tom Hopkins is in the lead running barefoot!
The winners of the races were Erin Guty and Tom Hopkins, our tour guide, Ioanna, prepared and with our other guide, Emilio, presented the traditional olive wreathes.
The teamlined up at the start/finish line of the ancient Olympic track.
The staff at the same venue.
Results from the Patras Meet (.pdf)
Tuesday, June 21: After the visit to Olympia it was back to business training for the forthcoming meet. We used the track of our hosts the Patras Athletic Club, here are the two teams at the track.
The team had a relaxing afternoon with a visit to the center of Patras for some shopping and sight-seeing. The following afternoon we travelled to the Stadium in Patras (used for soccer in the 2004
Olympics) for the 'FOTIADIA 2011' meet hosted by the Hellenic Amateur Athletic Association. The stadium was outstanding as can be seen by this shot of the teams entering the track.
Murray Peyton '57 who accompanied the team on the trip and is a regular announcer at Princeton track meets was the guest announcer (English language) for the meet.
The teams performed well at the meet as can be seen in the attached results. We had taken extra tour commemorative T shirts for the team to exchange with their greek opponents after the meet, here's a photo of the team after the meet, many wearing their opponents club shirts. Our terrific tour guides, Emilios and Ioanna, can be seen wearing their commemorative T shirts in front of the team.
Following the meet the team were joined by our hosts at a local taverna for a an open-air dinner. The next day was our last sight-seeing trip of the tour, via a spectacular railway ride from the coast up a rocky gorge to the ski resort of Kalavrita (alt ~1000m). Apart from the spectacular scenery Kalavrita was the scene of a massacre of the villagers in December 1943 and we visited the monument at the site of the executions above the village.
After having an open-air lunch at a taverna and some shopping in the village we began the drive through the mountains to Athens for our last night in Greece. On arrival in Athens we found that the police had gone on strike and the anarchists had taken the opportunity to set up road blocks. The
first bus made it through but the second had to make a detour and was delayed by half an hour. The demonstrations were fairly low key though, nothing like those that are going on now.
For our final meal in Greece we had dinner on the roof of our hotel (7th story), the views were impressive, as well as the lights of the opening ceremony at the 1896 Olympic Stadium (photo above by Chris Brock) on the other side we had the Acropolis/Parthenon.
Unfortunately due to the Special Olympics we were not able to enter the 1896 stadium to see where Princeton athletes represented the US in the first modern Olympics.
The next morning we flew back to the USA, again our pilot was Roger Probert, ending a memorable tour for all of us. Thanks are due to the Friends of Princeton Track whose generosity made the trip possible.