Women's Basketball Southern Conference

Spartans In Europe: Day Nine, Visit To Norway Olympic Training Center

Oslo, Norway - The teams spend the morning at the Norway Olympic Training Center, and win a pair of games at night to finish 3-0 against Norwegian competition.

David Schuck

We started our last day in Oslo with the usual breakfast. I had oranges, ceral, and break. We then left to go see the Norwegian University of Sport and the Olympic training center.

We toured the University first. Both the facilities and campus were nice and well kept up. The University is a school only for sport related fields, since the other schools in Norway do not offer those classes or majors. The education system in Norway is quite different. Although the facilities were nice relative to Norwayy, its amazing the difference when compared to the U.S. We are very fortunate to have great facilities like we do at UNCG.

Next, we went right next door to the OTC (Olympic Training Center). We toured the facilities which were small and saw weight rooms, a high-altitude training section, and meeting rooms. Our guide, who is a member of the Norwegian Olympic Committee, said that since Norway is a small country with small facilities, they try and make up for it with organization and through team building. They see their athletes as Norway athletes, not as skiers or soccer players or track and field athletes, and are very proud of their OTC.

After a nice lunch at the OTC, we came back to the hotel. We had a few hours before our pre-game meal and game, so Luke (Boythe) and I went and did some souvenir shopping. Oslo is such a busy city, and it seems like its almost all tourists walking the street.

After our pre-game meal of chicken and pasta, both teams played our games and won. We didn't get back to the hotel until 11:30 pm, so I called it a night after eating a pizza. We have a long day ahead tomorrow with an eight-hour bus trip to Stockholm in Sweden.

Megan Honeycutt

Today we woke up around 8:30 am and went down and ate breakfast in the hotel. We then loaded the bus to go on about a hour ride outside of Oslo, to the center where the Norwegians train their Olympic athletes. It was interesting to see the different kinds of facilities and machines they used to get their athletes into top shape.

I especially enjoyed seeing the high-altitude training rooms. The rooms (which were two rooms with four beds, connected to another small room with exercise equipment and computers) were specially designed to take some oxygen out of the air to build up the athletes level of red blood cells. This will, in the long run, help with their overall performance. We also got to meet a few of their soccer players and one of their top snowboarders.

After the trip to the Olympic Center, we then went back to the hotel and took a nap. It was great to rest up before our game! Once we woke up from our nap and ate some pasta for our pregame meal at our hotel, it was off to the game.

The gym that we played in looked brand new, though it was 10 years old. It was much nicer compared to the other two we've played in thus far this trip. Even though we played the same team that we had beaten by almost 20 points the night before, we started off the game slow and out of control. However, it didn't take long for us to pull it all together and bring in another victory. So, it was a sweep of all the Norway teams! Now, if we can only do the same in Sweden.

Well, I need to go. It is our last night in Oslo, and we don't have a curfew! Thanks Coach Agee!! It's a good thing we are on the bus for about eight hours tomorrow, so we can all catch up on our z's.