CBS Sport wins the 2010 Eurocup in Paris!

The trip started for us on Wednesday, 14th of April in Kastrup Airport, where a bunch of CBS Sport’ers had booked a cheap Norwegian flight. Of course some people all ready got lost at this point, one took the metro to Vestamager (wrong metro train) and one had forgotten her lenses back home and hurried home for them, and was the very last one to enter the airplane which resulted in a great applause from the other Sporters.

In Orly Airport after getting our luggage, we all took taxis to the hotel, where some of the Sporters had already arrived the day before. Of course the whole room situation was a big mess, as the hotel had booked the room in the Sporters’ names – randomly, so all the work with sorting people 3 and 3 out in rooms, was for nothing. But everyone found a place to sleep and was ready for sightseeing Thursday morning.

Thursday people went out for sightseeing, before meeting at the hotel to go to the Eurocup Opening Ceremony. Back at the hotel, a few more Sporters had arrived, but then the bad news reached us; The rest of the CBS Sporters was standing at Kastrup Airport and had their planes cancelled due to volcano ash coming from Iceland making it impossible for the planes to fly. It seemed totally surreal, and we all had a hard time believing the fact that a volcano on Iceland could have the blame for anything happening in Denmark. But the fact was that about 40 people were stuck in Denmark. Of course they tried to get busses, hire cars, book train tickets and all kinds of other options, but as soon as fly passengers at Kastrup had realized the fact of the situation, everything had been booked, so there was nothing to do. A handful of male handball players jumped in a car and took the long drive to Paris, others figured that they’d already planned to make a trip this weekend, so they decided to go to Lalandia and others just made a “free” weekend out of it.

But in Paris, we felt a bit lost. At first it looked like only the women’s football team and the women’s volley was enough to play any matches, but luckily it turned out that only male football, male handball and female rugby was too few. Male football borrowed some female footballers and one female handball player, the male handball team borrowed some female handball players and female rugby ended up playing some altogether rugby with all of the other teams.

Of course we ended out being quite late for the Eurocup Opening Ceremony, but we made it and got the information we needed, together with a tournament plan and program for the tournament. After the ceremony people went out to eat and have some beers afterwards.

Friday was the first day of sport and everyone was excited and eager to get started. The footballers had gotten a guide provided by the Eurocup crew so he helped us out to the pitches where we ended up spending the whole day. The male football team unfortunately didn’t win any matches, but CBS scored one very nice goal and the girls helping did a good job and frustrated a lot of the opponents. The women’s football team did a better job and won both their matches (even though a few were quite exhausted, after helping the guys). Unfortunately both the other teams seemed to have put a curse on their goals, because even though there were like 20 chances in both matches, CBS only won by one goal in both matches. – But more than enough to qualify for the final Saturday.

The men’s handball team had done a good job on the other side of the city. They played three matches with a female goalkeeper, a female line player and no substitutes, and won two matches and lost one. – And on Saturday they continued the good work and won another match, which meant that three teams were equal in points. When tournaments end with such a result you normally look at the points from the matches between those exact three teams, and if these are the same (as it was in this case) you look at the goal score from those matches. If this was the case CBS Handball Men would have taken home the gold. Instead Eurocup decided to take the score from the entire tournament which meant that the men came in second.

Friday night the Eurocup crew had arranged a pub-crawl, but the CBS Sporters took it easy and ended up spending too much time at the hotel resulting in missing the pub-crawl. So a bunch of Sporters went into Bastille and found some bars there instead.

On Saturday there were also volley by both men and women, women’s handball, women rugby, men’s basket and the women’s football final. Two of the football women had volunteered to help the rugby team, but unfortunately a German guy got badly injured which delayed the entire rugby program and meant that the football final was at the same time as the rugby matches, so they couldn’t help anyway. Somehow it all got sorted though, so the female rugby teams just ended up playing altogether and somehow CBS Sport Rugby actually won the trophy!

At volley, the men’s team won everything, and the women’s team only had one other team they could play against, so they decided to play 3 matches of 5 sets. Here they started out great and the only reason the other team got points was because of some bad serves from the CBS team. Unfortunately the women’s team lost focus for a second, but managed to pull them self together again and as the guys they won everything!

Women’s handball was playing with two teams and there were only one other French team. So in the women’s handball finale, it was CBS Sport 1 against CBS Sport 2 – good chances at getting a trophy there! CBS Sport 1 won the match and both teams was happy to be at first and second place.

The men’s basket, where half of the team had rented a car and driven the whole way down to Paris, managed to win one match out of three which gave them a third place out of four and resulted in a great deal of compliments from the Eurocup Crew.

The football finale for the women’s team was something that they had asked for themselves to get to play some more football – but that also meant, that there was a bit of nerves, as it would be super embarrassing if they lost, as they had won the two matches the day before and therefore would automatically be the winner. Fortunately it all ended happily. The CBS goalie touched the ball less than 10 times during the entire match and the CBS team had one of the best shooting practices ever. But yet again the goal seemed cursed and the match ended 1-0 to CBS. Trophy!

During Friday and Saturday everyone had been dreading the volcano ash and the consequences it would have for all the Sporters who needed to go home. News on the internet kept expanding the timeframe of closed airspace and the flight companies started to recommend people to find alternative travel by themselves. And here we were a bit more than 40 people who needed to get back to Denmark. A few even had exams Tuesday and Wednesday, and the women’s football team had a cup match Tuesday which seemed impossible to move due to DBU rules, so for them it was quite essential to get home.

At first everything seemed impossible, as all busses and trains were booked, but somehow we ended up getting a bus for 40 persons. Great, but not so great as we were more than 40. Even that got sorted as some had alternatives and some could live with a few days in Paris, as their insurance would pay for their stay anyway. Everything seemed ok until Thomas called the bus company with whom the deal was and they knew nothing about the deal. At this point the world just seemed cruel. But we were supposed to be at the Eurocup Ending Ceremony Party at a cool boat at Seinen, where we would receive our trophies, so we decided to just go out and have fun and figure it out Sunday.
The Ending Ceremony was held at a boat with three decks; one top deck where people could be outside and smoke and two decks inside with different music. The bar prices were great and the music was ok, so we had a good party, and the party just got better, when the trophies got handed out;

Men’s Volley; CBS Sport
Womens Volley; CBS Sport
Men’s handball; ICADE (Madrid)
Women’s handball; CBS Sport
Women’s Rugby; CBS Sport
Men’s Rugby; Bremen Uni (Bremen)
Men’s football; ICADE (Madrid)
Women’s football; CBS Sport
Men’s basket; Sorbonne (Paris)

Overall Winner of the 2010 Eurocup; CBS Sport

So even though half of our Sporters got stuck in Denmark we ended up winning more trophies than last year. So the CBS Sport goal of Eurocup 2010 was achieved!

Sunday the whole how-do-we-get-home continued and successfully Kirstines mom somehow managed to charm her way to a bus. It turned out that a Danish bus had been on a trip down through Europe and was on their way home empty. 37 seats for CBS Sports, thank you! And again we managed to get it sorted, so all seats at the bus were filled and everyone who got left behind had alternatives (besides Asger, who took one for the team). Great!

Rest of Sunday was spent with sightseeing and relaxing in the sun at the park by Louvre. At this point all of the Sporters also needed to just do nothing.

Monday morning at 9-9.30 the bus left from the hotel and a 17 hours bus drive was done with two great bus drivers who saved us so much!

Over all, the trip was a success! We had some difficulties and some challenges throughout the weekend, but we managed to survive, get 6 trophies and be home in time for exams and important matches.

Written by Cecilie Rasmussen

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