Day 0: Arrival in Adelaide (23rd April)
Hello everyone, and welcome to my Tour de Cure 2015 blog. I will endeavour to capture the highlights of each day for you, updating you on progress and memorable moments.
The first very memorable moment occurred whilst waiting at the baggage carousel at the Adelaide airport with 3 of my fellow Tour de Cure riders when a lady came up to us and told us she had just watched the 2014 Tour de Cure documentary on the flight (Virgin is showing it on their in flight entertainment system) and then recognised us from it. She confessed that she couldn’t stop crying and had to ask the hostess for extra napkins because she ran out of tissues, and told us that what we were doing was very special. A special moment.
Before we get into the details of what happened today you may remember our world class roving reporter from last year, Willie Maykit. I am glad to say Willie, depsite being offered many other high profile gigs, signed up to help out with the Tour de Cure this year. He will again provide a summary of events for you all to read. Here are some words from Willie from Day 1.
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“Hello everyone, my name is Willie Maykit and I’ve joined the 2015 Tour de Cure Signature Tour from Adelaide to Melbourne and I will cover the hard hitting stories over the 9 days and 1,300+ kms to Melbourne. It’s good to be back!
So 180 of my new best friends (riders and support crew) have made their way to Adelaide for the 9th Tour de Cure. The next 9 days will be filled with incredible stories, gruelling conditions, amazing experiences, handing out $10,000 cheques to communities each night directly targeted to breakthrough research and without a doubt having a lot of fun along the way. I hope I can get through each day!
Last night after the team briefing we headed to the Watermark in Glenelg for a fantastic dinner, speeches and presentations of the category jerseys.
Our first $10,000 community donation is to the Flinders Medical Centre Foundation to purchase a class II Biological Safety cabinet required for new screening facility.
Then we move onto the most amazing story of the real impact of cancer. Nathan Jones has Stage 4 Melanoma which has no cure, he is also a Tour de Cure rider, WOW! Due to ground breaking drugs he has been able to fight with new medicine and a positive outlook from a chronic prognosis to now being in remission. He also introduced us to his family and shared the stories of strength and support that is required to fight this disease.
Now onto the category jerseys – What are they? Some of you will no doubt know about the famous yellow jersey of the Tour de France is awarded to the race leader, we also have some epic awards — not for the fastest or the hardest climber, but for people who are outstanding in executing the Tour de Cure values. I will be doing my best to get one!!
So before we begin the tour we have these awards for those who have really helped us get to the start line.
The winners tonight of those awards are:
• Focus: (white) Danny Moore
• Doer: (Orange) Clint Bowen
• Attitude: (Yellow) Ann Smith
• Awareness: (green) Jodi Harris
• Guts: (blue) Mal Heath
• Inspiration (Pink) Andrew Woodward
The South Australia Police Commissioner was in attendance and he got up to say a few words, finishing off with a promise to organise us a police escort out of town at the crack of dawn the next morning. It’s good to know people in high places!
Final Briefings were held after dinner and then we were all packed up into bed at 9:30 for a 4:45 am yes, that is AM roll out.”
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Thanks for that update Willie. Look forward to your daily commentary and hopefully something witty so we don’t all get too bored…just kidding.
Over and out for Day 0.
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