Competition Eve and all in the house was quiet

Well, perhaps in your house, but certainly not here, where its been a hive of activity as everyone puts the finishing touches on their preparation.

This entry will round out the team introductions so without further ado...

This is final tandem pairing of Brandie O'Connor (R) and Kerry Knowler (L). Someone thought the author should make at least one appearance in the blog so that's yours truly putting in a cameo in between the two girls.

 Brandie and Kerry are the other two rowing converts in the team and just can't help but refer to their training efforts as 'pieces'. Kerry's no stranger to top level competition, having represented Australia at the 2000 Olympic Games - in rowing, of course. This is Brandie's second time at a World Championship, having represented Australia at last year's para road Championships. She's worked hard in training since then and is hopeful that the extra fitness and experience she now has will lead to some good results here in Montichiari.

And finally, here are our two single bike men, Andrew Panazzolo (L) and Michael Gallagher (R).

Andrew, or Fabio as he's known here in downtown Italy (can you guess why?), is our C2 men's representative.  With his Italian heritage he doubles as local food critic and team interpreter when the going gets tough for the non-Italian speakers.

Michael competes in the C5 division. He's an old hand at this International competition business and is known for his meticulous preparation, not to mention a swag of World Championship and Paralympic medals.

That's it for the introductions, so hopefully you'll be a little better acquainted with everyone as you follow their achievements in the next few days and, who knows, maybe even beyond that as their para cycling careers progress.

Tomorrow sees Michael open proceedings with the C5 pursuit qualification round. Later in the day, all four tandems will be in action in their 1000m time trials. For those unfamiliar with cycling, that's four laps of the track for the tandems and 16 laps for Michael. The finals of the men's pursuits are also on during the evening session, so hopefully my next post will bring you some good results to brag to the rest of the world about!

Until then...