Monday, May 17, 2010

Tales from the Diplomatic Corps 8

Hey folks!

The following memory has, in short, already been written about Mrs. Sherry Tsai from Hong Kong. However, on the occasion of her being presented on the Olympic homepage, I will repeat it, since I think it's kinda funny.

When we arrived in Singapore, there were 30 Young Ambassadors and 60 local CEP champs gathering for an amazing week. So at the beginning, it was time to get to know each other. As you can imagine, this is quite a procedure when you have to introduce yourself to 89 people you have never met before. In this big introduction chaos, I somehow managed to not meet Sherry, which is why we only had our first proper conversation three days into the seminar.

You also must know that during the seminar, the usual third question (after "What's your name?" and "Where do you come from?") was: "Are you an athlete as well?". The same was true with Sherry and me. Just see how our dialogue went from there:

Florian: "So, are you an athlete as well?"
Sherry: "I used to be, I just retired from swimming."
Florian: "Cool. So were you a competitive swimmer?"
Sherry: "Yeah, kind of."
Florian: "Cool. Did you compete...like on a national level."
Sherry: "Well, yeah." PAUSE "Three Olympics..."

Maybe being written down it's not as funny as it was in real life, however, I still have to smile when thinking back of it. Call me weird, but learning that the, on the outside inconspicuous, person you are talking to is actually a former world-class athlete gives an interesting shift to some conversations. Anyways, coming back to Sherry: After ending her career this year, she is now going for her master degree in sport sciences, Beside, she is also working as a TV presenter, hosting a sports TV show and is a part-time swimming coach. Not to mention her being the Young Ambassador of Hong Kong. So if you are an athlete and you question yourself how you can start a successful second career once you retire from active sport, ask Sherry - she definitely knows how it is done!

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