Pál said in an interview yesterday on our Faroese spoken sister-site, that he had entered the 5K here in Berlin to get open water experience, before a possible attempt to reach Rio.
I’m sure he didn’t mean the kind of experience he got today. Disqualified because of a false start, in a 5K. Ouch.
This was my first time at a real open water race, and it was quite interesting. A very nice atmosphere in general, but also real upsetting moments like when that Polish girl got in trouble, and of course when Pál was back with us way too early.
The evening has been spent communicating back to the Faroe Islands, on what went wrong. To cut it real short, we felt he had a good chance in this race, and were calm and confident right up till that moment when his suit ripped about the same time as the final call came for the competitors. So he changed real quick, into a long john suit instead of the bodysuit.
Pál himself wrote on Facebook tonight
Had a nightmare of at start to these European Camps. I got disqualified for a false start at the 5k today, which was very irritating, because I had no incentive to cheat, I just didn’t know the start signal well enough. Simply a case of lack of open water experience. But fair is got to be fair, every .01 second counts and this is a gentleman’s sport after all. I’m just glad that the judges stopped me in the first round, so that I didn’t waste to much energy. Which I’m gonna need in the pool later this week. No need to stare into the rear view mirror.
So yeah, we put this behind us now, and focus on the pool races next week !
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