Below is a report from student Holly Ward onher experience competing in Speed Skating in Indonesia over the last few weeks.

The first week the team stayed in Tangarang which is in city centre of Jakarta and they had 3 days to aclimatise to the weather and do some training. They then had 2 days of competition. Holly did very well.   She had a 5th placing in the 15km elimination race and 4th in the 1km race, 4th in the 500m, 4th and time trial, 3rd for the half marathon, and the relay the team got a gold medal.

The team moved to Bekasi a more rural place of Jakarta and were up against more experienced and tougher competitors.  Holly placing was 5th in 1km race and the was the only NZ to make the final and 3rd in the 500m, and 3rd in the team relay.

In Holly's words:

Indonesia was an amazing life and skating experience. I learnt so much in the two weeks that I was there. It was crazy being in such a humid and hot country and having to still do my best in skating. It was really cool to see how other countries work and about their culture. 

Jakarta was very different to New Zealand because when you’re walking around the streets were going to the skating rink to compete it felt super weird because you’re the only white person there so every two seconds you would get a little kid come up to you or a parent and ask you to photo.  While walking around the streets you would get people secretly taking photos of you. 

 It was really fun to bargain with all the shops owners to get the lowest deal possible. On our rest day we got to experience the public transport on a bus which was really slow, we were only going on a 30min bus trip which ended up being 3 hours..... craaazzyy. It was all worth it though because we went to 1000 islands and went snorkeling and got to experience proper Indonesian culture. 

The racing overseas was an amazing experience, I learnt how to skate in a huge bunch and how rules can be changed at the second and how they start races compared to us. The tracks they have over there were very different to ours, theirs are very bumpy and awkward to skate on, while ours are nice and smooth and easy to skate on. 

Overall it was a really good experience seeing the culture of Indonesia and how everything works over there compared to here in NZ.