After our pleasant journey on the Isle of Rhodos few weeks ago, Lieve and I were looking forward to the invitation of the manager Sim to meet him and the other riders in Belarus.
Meet "them all" is probably to much to write as most of them didn't make it. The appointment was to see each other on thursday 9 May. But that is not what the airport crew in Toulouse or was it Lufthansa tought. Most of the flights were cancelled.
So it happened that Lieve and I (and with us two Dutch riders) landed in Minsk Airport somewhere in the afternoon on thursday. A phonecall and fourty minutes later and we sat in a bus towards the centre of Minsk.
If you have no idea of Belarus, you would think of grey buildings and boring streets. Of course the road from the airport is the same all over the world, big boulevard with screeming billboards.But the city looked nice, clean and busy.
Once in the hotel, we met Thomas, one of our French riders who made it. And an hour later Kento from Japan arrived too. Our other riders would arrive late at night or even on Saturday.
The next morning, Lieve and I had to go to the permenance to pick up numbers, accreditations and a car. All this happening in the afternoon. Good to see my Chinese mate Zhe Suen aka Alex, with his Chinese team Ningxia.
Because the other guys haven't turned up, we had a full day to stroll around in the city. The beautiful boulevards, the huge buildings, the street art, the beautiful riverbanks of the Svislach and the pleasant streets of the old town, all this was really enjoyable to discover.
Lots of things we didn't expect in a former Russian state, such as brown caffees, coffee shops.
The first race, Minsk Cup, we had to start with three riders, Thomas, Kento and Mathieu (who arrived after midnight the same morning). We missed him at the airport (48km away from the hotel) cause we got completely lost in the darkness of the night and a deviation who took us into a forest and further not one little sign directing the airport. We got back at Bonhotel at 2am !!
The first race, five laps around the lake just out of Minsk. And a final straight to the city centre.Kento finished 15th, Mathieu 88th and Thomas 102nd, all soaked wet after the rain came down buckets full.
The other side of the (friendly looking city) medal, we experienced the day of race number two, G.P.Minsk.
The circuit was stretched out over the city, A 15km loop that the riders had to cover ten times. The whole city was blocked off. And when I say blocked off it is blocked off. Even us team managers with accreditated cars and staff could not get in. We tried first at the main "entrance", two hundred meters away from the teams parking. The police on duty didn't say no he screamed NO and GO while his eyes nearly popped out of his face! Sim and I argued a while but the cop turned pink, red and by the time purple came up Lieve told me to move.
Let's try the next street, two big trucks blocked the road, but I saw a gap big enough to drive thru, which I did, but same scenario, police officers didn't want to open the fench. Again I argued, same result, angry officers, yelling and screeming. In the meantime more team cars lined up behind us.And suddenly two giants turned up. You know the kinda fellas, two meters tall, black suit, one finger on their ear (former KGB someone said to me). They started a discussion, more police cars turned up and yep the door went open. Finally! Fiftheen minutes before the start. That we got body searched and had to open every bag in the car and someone searching underneath the car with a mirror are only details.
The result of our race, a bunch kick with again Kento in good shape (19th)Not a surprise that we had a few beers that evening to talk over all our stories.
Thanks again to Simeon "Sim" Green, Guillaume "GuiGui" Soula, Thomas "Peyroton" Dartet, Mathieu "Giby" Gibaud and Kento "Old Bobby" Omachi.
See you soon guys!
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