My journey began with leaving my lovely home at 1:15am for the 6am flight from Edinburgh to Frankfurt, then Frankfurt to Graz, Austria. I was very fortunate with the travel, nice weather and most important of all, my luggage arrived in Graz with me!
We got picked up right away from the airport to the hotel and I had the afternoon to explore the city before heading back for the briefing. The briefing was held by Daniel Sahlberg and Ewald Cejnek, and I got to meet other technical officials as well as the line judges during the briefing, which was nice to meet them in person. After the briefing, the event organiser treated us all with a very nice buffet dinner at the hotel.
The venue was within a 10-min walk from the hotel and it was next to a Lidl, which was very convenient as I thought it would be easy for me to get any snacks or drinks during the tournament. It turned out I did not need to worry about that at all. The café in the venue was constantly putting out drinks, fruits, cakes etc. and they are all free to the TOs which was another great gesture from the event organiser.
The tournament was overall very well run and every day was able to finish by the expected time. However, we did encounter a problem, which was the heat due to the weather. Despite the venue had all the doors opened in the morning to cool down the hall, couple of hours later the hall would become very warm as the doors were closed when the matches started. Half way through the first day, we were asked to tip every four. On the second day, we were told to continue tipping every four but need to tip further down the feather as the shuttles were still too fast. On the third day, we were told to change from tipping every four to every two. This was because of tipping further down the feather did slow down the shuttle but the shuttle broke a lot easier and quicker. I don’t think I have ever tipped so many shuttles in my life!
During the tournament, I took part in their raffle and got a bath towel, notebook, scented candle, children’s game in German and a book also in German. Due to limited space in the luggage, I could only bring back the notebook and the towel which my dog seemed to like.
The tournament was also a BEC-assessment, six candidates including myself. We were sharing experience and discussion on the laws, ITTO’s etc. for the preparation for both on court and written assessment. We even held a study group one evening. I did not find umpiring under assessment particularly stressful, it certainly helped with a good team of TO’s which I know they had my back. On the last day we got debriefed and I was told that I have passed the assessment. Five out of six candidates passed which was a pretty good result overall. After the tournament a few of us headed for the airport but flight was delayed, which left me very little time for transit. After running like a mad person, I managed to change the second flight to come home.
I thoroughly enjoyed the tournament. From meeting new and familiar faces, to gaining valuable experience to umpiring. Slight problem is it seems we have successfully flooded Europe with our association coin. Majority of the umpires said they had already got one from one of our umpires when I offered them our association coin (most frequently mentioned name was Ian followed by Amanda). Perhaps we can think of an alternative to offer to umpires from other countries?