Take a (playable) Tour of
the Course
Requires Google Earth
Official Event Website
2009 Pan American Championship
Images by Steph Teeter
2009 Pan American Championship
Images by Steph Teeter
2009 Pan American Championship
Images by Steph Teeter
Home || Starters List || Official Website || Final Results
Stories: Got Here Just in Time - Steph || Arrival in Uruguay - Dinah Rojek || Day Before the Race - Kathy Brunjes || Hola!! Kyle Gibbon
Vet In Day - Steph || Thursday Morning - Kathy Brunjes || Thursday Afternoon - Kathy Brunjes || On Loop 3 - Steph
Friday Night - Kathy || The Day After - Kathy|| Heading Home - Dinah || Pan Am Departure - Kyle
2 Medallas de oro para la Argentina - Claudia Quentin
Steph's Story:
Part 1, The Venue
Part 2, Team Effort - Uruguay and Argentina
Part 3, Team Effort - USA
Part 4, Team Effort - Guatemala and Malaysia
Images of the Event:
Vetting In ||
The Road ||
The Beach ||
The Camp ||
The Camp - more ||
The Finish ||
Awards Celebration ||
Team USA
PanAm Departure - Kyle Gibbon
The PanAmericans were a wonderful experience, our U.S. Team worked so well together! Everyone did great, amazing horses and a marvelous team! A huge applause to everyone!
After all 4 members of our team completed, we cleaned up our crew areas and headed to the barns. The horses were taken care of and we headed back to the hotel to change and shower for a celebration feast! Steph Teeter and most of our team headed back to the same restaurant that we had gone to a few nights prior. Fortunately, this time our spanish was at peak and it went much smoother :-)
The following morning some of us headed to the barns to feed and walk the horses. They looked fantastic. We also cleaned and organized some of our mess from race day. Today, there is going to be another 120 km and also an 80 km race. When we arrived, many horses were already warming up and raring to go! Soon enough we were headed back to "Hotel Pieroska" to enjoy a bountiful breakfast with the entire team.
Okay, so now we go cruise back to the venue in Costa Azul for one last time to finish packing everything. Steph and a woman from Endurance World get some good pictures of our riders with their silver medals and of the entire U.S. team. Many of us got souvenirs. I even bought a Uruguayan hat! Everyone is rejoicing today!
Unfortunately, Dinah, Steve, Becky, Kathy, Jim and I must all fly back to the states today. We will not be able to stay in Costa Azul for the Ceremony...
Steve, Dinah, Kathy, Becky, Jim, and I flew out of Montevideo at 9 p.m. We arrived in Miami, FL at 5 a.m. this morning. It is now about 8:00. We will take another flight to Jacksonville in about half an hour. Kathy will not get back to Maine until 9 p.m. tonight. Becky and some of the other members of our team also have rather long trips back home. It is all worth it though. The horses will fly out of Montevideo, Uruguay on Monday at 6 a.m. I'm sure they will be quite happy to be rolling in their pastures again!
Before we went to the airport, we toured some of Montevideo. We found a very interesting tack shop called "Los Barrales" It was very fancy. It had many antique gaucho crops, saddles, stirrups, etc. It was all very unique tack. Dinah bought a braided necklace and I got some Uruguayan belts. They are made from a unique animal native to the area called "Chaibata" I believe. Soon after we got downtown we found a nice little place to eat. Our meals consisted of chicken, cream of celery and asparagus soups, hake (fish), fried banana, etc. We saw some interesting things on the streets such as small horse drawn wagons going through the city. There were even jugglers and people on stilts performing for cars as they were stopped at red lights. It was very entertaining!
Eventually we made our way to the beach front. Tons of people everywhere! They were running, biking, roller blading, and many were playing soccer or "futbol". The Montevideo shoreline is beautiful. It is plentiful with palm trees and a rather rocky shore...
-Kyle Gibbon