Watch the femmes

Second day of volunteering at the UCI world champs and today it was the finals for the BMX park. Thanks for the hearts and stars on yesterday's blip!

Due to rain-delays, the sport started earlier than expcted today so we were all asked to come in and start our shifts a bit sooner.  I headed into town early to get a lift with P and avoid a bus and treated myself to a Stack and Still for breakfast. The place was filled with people from all over the world presumably here for the Championships.  I had breakfast next to a French family whose daughter ordered the 'strawberry cheesecake stack' which she needed considerable help from the rest of the family to finish!

I then slowly wandered across town to Glasgow Green, stopping to watch the kids on their circular race from George Square to Argyle Street. Some really great kids looking seriously good on their bikes.

After wandering around the green trying to find an entrance to let us in,  we soon got started for the day. I was stationed at the info point today with F and spent much of the day telling people where the water refill point was, and updating the schedule as things changed.  The most taxing request was trying to draw out the road race loop on a glasgow tourist map for a couple who asked.  Not sure how successfull it was but we tried!  See Sparserunner's entry for a behind the scenes look at the sport preparation.  The track was pretty wet and many volunteers were out drying, so the day started a wee bit late and that meant our schedule board had a good few changes!

Highlights of the day were as ever the people, I meant a wee girl who had qualified for a BMX track race herself and she was super stoked to see the sport today.  Also got to meet Dame Tanni Grey Thompson who graciously stopped off at the info point to ask how we were all doing and how the event was going.  We all stood trying to be cool when that happened!  Then the last highlight was watching the women's elite near one of the Chinese competitors who didn't make it to the final but was there filming and cheering on her team mates.  One of her team had an amazing run which pushed her up the rankings, and she was super excited - she looked at me, we high-fived and she shouted 'So Good!!'.  Hard not to love that!

There was some more rain drama, the men's final had almost finished - only the previous world champ and olympic champ to go and there was a sudden, very short, very sharp downpour which was over before it begun but then pushed everything back by an hour. Unfortunatley lots of spectators went home at this point, and quite a few seemed disappointed that the medal ceremony wouldn't be held until after the women had also competed.  That meant a much smaller crowd for the women, but it did mean I could get close to the action at the end of the day.  Blip is of two of the highest-ranked women on their warm up run.  Hannah Morris did an epic run to retain the women's title and get what I think was her sixth rainbow jersey!

Totally shattered after a long day, but another fab day at the champs!