It also called World University Games, held once every two year. It is the second biggest multi event after the Olympic Games. University student-athletes from around the globe, representing their home country, come and participate in this event to prove that besides studying and chasing grades, they can compete in sports at a world stage events. Last year was held in Taipei. This would be my second Universiade, the very first time I participated was in 2011 in Shenzhen. Coming to this event, I was very excited. This event was huge, there would be thousands of athletes, endless food at the dining hall, gigantic stadium, a very large room apartment at the athletes village, free merchandise and gadgets, and many more privileged.
I remembered we were arrived at Taipei late night, with 50 other athletes from Indonesia. Then straight to athletes villages, I could see there were about 8 apartment building just for athletes accommodation. After getting our ID card, we got our room key, me, Kreta, and Lily were roommates in one bedroom apartment. It was huge thou, got a dining table, bathroom, kitchen set, fast wifi connection. In the morning, moving on to dining hall, woaaww, massive food all over the place. Huge dining hall, We got Asian food, halal, European, Taiwan specialty, desert table, Vegan, unlimited beverages, you name it. The most excellent food for the best athletes in the world. Healthy lifestyle for my ten days stayed here. But I realized that we couldn’t eat those food before the race, I was just gonna eat what I used to eat back home.
Thou still amused by the dining hall, we had to go training. With this ID card, we could go to any venue for free. So we’re taking shuttle bus for athletes and officials, 30 minutes drive then we arrived at the stadium. I thought it’s gonna be a big national swimming pool, but it wasn’t. It was huge, but it was a temporary swimming pool, the original building was an indoor multi function hall. It was amazing, the air con was so cold. The warm down pool was outside at parking lot, also a temporary pool. Then at the race day, to be honest, I didn’t perform well in this competition. I lost weight due to triathlon training in the mix, my muscle shrunk a little bit, and it should’ve been a big muscular sprinter body. But the privilege of being at this Universiade wasn’t go to waste, I learnt a lot from a world class athletes. On how I should be on the warm up, stretching, cooling down, pre race ritual, and nutrition during a major race.
Although Me and my 7 other teammates, was nothing compared to these world class swimmer, yet we were the best at the region. That’s why the federation chose us to represent the country. Compete with them, the struggle was real, feeling a mental breakdown a little, because there’s no way we could win this games, they’re such a fast swimmer. But I believe we’re Indonesian still building up to become the top swimmer in world. It felt like the longest six days of my life. My routine was waking up in the morning, dining hall, swimming pool, warm up, race, cooling down, ice bath, dining hall, then bed room. All my heart, body, and soul was tired. But the journey hasn’t stopped here. To replenish the exhaustion we did walking around and shopping in Taipei, but I’ll tell you later in my next post. Ciao!
