Global Sport Stories

I’ve never been to Canada, but I’d love to. Someone once told me that it’s a place where you can ski in the morning and surf in the afternoon and that has stuck with me ever since. Similarly, I have family in California, who have told me about the ‘California Trifecta’. The aim is to ski/snowboard, skate and surf all in the same day, sounds amazing. Now although I may not be in Canada or California, and I may have done my activities over a few days, it turns out you can have a taste of Canada and complete the California Trifecta right here in the North East if you really want to… sort of.

Monday started off very un-trifecta related, that being said. Another gym session followed by another session in the pool. A classic combination at this point. More work targeting the shoulders mainly before another kilometre in the pool. In the evening however, was when I boarded the metaphorical flight to California.

Except swap the resorts of Big Bear Mountain Resort or Lake Tahoe for the dry slopes of Silksworth ski slope in Sunderland. Now would I rather be surrounded by picturesque mountains and blue sky, safe in the knowledge that when I’ve had my fun here I am off to the beaches of Los Angeles to surf, yes. However, the car parks, 4G football pitches and overall gloomy view of the city of Sunderland (which I admit I am known to be fairly uncomplimentary about) had to suffice. But I was outside, I had a pair of skis attached to my feet and I was doing something physically active a bit different to the norm, therefore I was happy.

I can’t write this without pretending it wasn’t absolutely brutal conditions though. Despite the slope probably being less than 100m above sea level, at that point at 9pm on a wet December night, you may as well have been on Everest. Saturated with rain, with winds whipping you from seemingly every angle, it turns out Silksworth ski slope is not for the faint hearted! The last time I had skis on my feet I was in Peru, gloriously sunny, sandy Peru. How times change. I had fun though, whether on sand or bristles, in Peru or Sunderland, I very much enjoy skiing as an activity and hopefully am slightly improving at it again.

Tuesday saw the ‘North East Triple,’ as I’m now dubbing it, put on hold. Nothing active for me, instead some live sport to watch others be active. Newcastle Eagles in European basketball action against Voluntari of Romania. Despite not being a basketball superfan, I would like to say I have a good understanding of the game, so please don’t laugh too hard when I say it may have been the most incredible game you will ever see. From the tip-off Newcastle Eagles never led the match, not once. Not until there was about a minute to go from the end, when they had overturned a deficit at times as great as 16 points, had the Eagles clinched the lead. I was actually there doing some journalistic work and never had I felt more cliche. In preparation of interviewing the players I started my mini script with the words “commiserations on the loss…”. That had to get quickly re-written upon the final buzzer sounding!

It really was a feel good evening, made even better by the fact I got to interview the players afterwards and write a piece to potentially be published. Keeping up with and attending more Eagles matches is definitely something I would like to do.

Moving on, Wednesday saw a return to the North East Triple! This time, surfing. Skies were grey, temperatures were low, but the waves looked good, so my girlfriend and I headed for the coast to get a session in. The waves were good, almost too much so. A bit of fighting the torrent of at least four footers prompted us to more or less stay in the whitewash, which was still great fun. The dark December evening seemed to descend on us quickly, providing a real atmospheric nature to the session as light quickly faded and the North Sea continued to roar. In contrast to the almost angry conditions of the Sea, we were serenaded by Molly’s personal rendition of ‘Let It Snow’ whilst battling the waves; a real nice contrast and a soundtrack I believe all surfers should get to experience…

I think we could both say we have surfed bigger and better waves but we seemed to be having more joy than our counterparts who had made it out back and were struggling to pick up the larger rollers. So by the time light finally faded, we’d definitely had our surfing fill and surprisingly weren’t worried by the usual threat of hyperthermia.