Eurasia’s 2019 Sports Meeting
The Sports Meeting at Eurasia University was as loud and exciting as a burst of confetti. Bright colors danced on the costumes and banners. The air smelled of sunscreen and sweat. As the first foreign students invited to participate in the festivities, we were invited to join the opening ceremony as well as the competitions throughout the event. The opening ceremony took place on the sports field where different clubs and organizations marched through and did a quick performance for the judges and students in the stands. We joined Eurasia’s International Community, which included freestyle dancing on the spot. While none of us are dancers, we laughed through our awkwardness and gave it a go! One foreigner got punched in the face by a loose dance-move, but other than that the dance was just goofy.
The actual competitions spanned two days, with our students participating in around seven events. Nate and Andy were the only two to participate in track and field events—Nate ran the 5k on Friday and placed 5th with a run just over 19 minutes. Andy’s long jump was Thursday.
The games were more relaxed—and funny. Case and point: my game, bike roller riding. Picture riding a bike perpendicular to friends, all of you passing a water bottle amongst you as you glide along the road. Now picture doing that while logrolling on a river. That’s an accurate mental image of what my event was like. The goal of the game was to pass a water bottle between three bikes as many times as possible in three minutes, all while staying balanced on a rolling platform. My group managed to stay biking for almost three minutes, but we didn’t pass the bottle once. Baby steps!
Several other games included Jump roping and tug-of-war and the Bunny relay.The jump roping team, comprised of Jinsoo, MinJong, and David, killed the sport. There was no official winning team, but they were the best!Tug-of-war was not a victory for our foreign team—David, Ben, and Wayne—all the same, they were great sports and had a blast!
Written by: Katie Gillespie – Spring 2019 Silk Road Start Student and Intern
Photos by: Sherry Shen