The 16th World Transplant Games
Bangkok, Thailand
25th August - 2nd September
Review As always, what follows is
my personal account of The Games on my personal website. If
anyone has a problem with my views and opinions that is their right.
Equally I am entitled to my right to write. I welcome any
feedback, good or bad in my 'Guest Book'. The UK team consisted of 123
competitors, including 23 juniors, plus supporters, medics and management
and according to the official programme we had a complement of 190 which was
easily the biggest squad at the Games. Lynne
Holt was Team Manager for the first time and and her second in command was Barrie Laverick. 
For full size photographs click on thumbnail and again in right
hand corner. The 16th World Transplant Games were my fourth as a
competitor and I have to say were not my most memorable nor enjoyable.
Bangkok no doubt is a wonderful city but our home for 10 days, the
Bangkok Palace Hotel
although very pleasant was situated in a very seedy part of town.
The local mafia (honestly) had a pool of taxis and Tuk Tuks adjacent to the
hotel which we used once.
 Once was definitely
too many times as we were taken everywhere except where we wanted to go.
Overpriced jewellery stores, Thai silk shops, tawdry gift emporiums, tailors
and cafes I wouldn't let my dog eat in. All this for the
ridiculous price of 150 baht. The opening gambit having been 300
baht. Having learnt our lesson we subsequently ignored
the mob and walked to the end of the street where taxis were plentiful and
all fares were on the meter. Not once did the meter go above 71
baht and that after we had been in a cab for 45 minutes. The
average fare was 50 - 60 baht for most places in the city.
Having arrived on the Wednesday we had 4 days to explore and acclimatise and
a highlight was our trip to Kanchanaburi where we visited The Bridge on The
River Kwai.  Following a two hour coach journey we took a boat
trip on the river Kwai up to the bridge and those brave enough could walk
across the iconic structure, sadly I wasn't brave enough. We had
time to look around the museum and visit the mass graves (mostly Australians
and British servicemen) before taking lunch in a jungle restaurant.
After lunch we rode the train for half an hour and rattled over the rickety
wooden bridge which clings limpet like to the side of a mountain, carved
from the jungle. How these brave men accomplished such an
engineering feat in these conditions is unthinkable and it was an incredibly
moving experience and one I would not have missed for anything.
The grave above bearing my surname shows that Private Marsh died on Mrs
Boggy's birthday (not the year).
 | The opening ceremony was held indoors on Sunday
26th August at the BKK Stadium. |
As opening ceremonies go it was OK but we had to hang
around in the arena for nearly two hours before anything happened.
Luckily we were sitting down for quite a while but once called down into the
main arena we were left standing and could only watch what was happening on
one of the two giant screens. His Majesty King Bhumibol
Adulyadej is the longest serving monarch in the world (60 years) and his
sister Her Royal Highness Princess Galyani Vadhana, Krom Luang Naradhiwas
Rajanagarindra was gracious enough to officially open The 16th World
Transplant Games after a few lengthy and incomprehensible speeches by the
various great and good who were present. Monday 27th
August / Tuesday 28th August This was the
official practice day for the golf and because the golf course was
70 miles from the centre of Bangkok and a 1½ /
2 hour coach journey there and at least 2 / 3 hours return
the UK and Irish teams decided to up sticks and book into the on
course hotel for the night. This would mean we
could practice and relax rather than face a gruelling trip back to
the city and another journey back the following morning at the crack
of dawn without breakfast. Golf is my passion but
there is so much wrong with the way it is organised at the World
Transplant Games that sometimes I despair. Why we could
not play at one of the many city centre courses is a mystery.
I make no apology for the following: Many of you
who are reading this will not be golfers but if I tell you that age
categories in golf are ridiculous will just have to trust me on this
and accept my word for it. It is
an arbitrary division of the field which could just as easily have
been based on our weight (slim, fat and obese) or shoe sizes (1-5,
6-9, 10+). Golfers throughout the world are
categorised by handicap which is finely adjusted following every
competition round at their golf club which during the summer
could possibly be every week. It therefore follows that
the lower the handicap the more accurate it is and the better the
golfer. Handicaps in the UK (at least) can be
checked on a site called Howdidido or via the player's club.
Each player should have an up to date certificate which must
be handed in before play begins, by up to date I mean it should be
signed and dated by the club secretary not more than 1 month ago.
If a player cannot do this he must play off scratch (handicap
= 0). There should be three (max) divisions and be
divided thus: 0 - 11: 12 -18: 19 - 28.
The competition should also reward the best gross scores by awarding
a gold, silver and bronze medal to the three best golfers on the
day. Only players with a handicap of 18 or less should
be able to win this prestigious medal and most likely it will be
three of the lowest handicapped golfers, though not always the case.
A second category of medal can then be awarded based on a Stableford
scoring system in the three respective divisions. If a
player has won a medal in the gross he cannot win a second medal.
This system will speed up play and prevent 'hackers' recording
scores in double figures hole after hole. Once a player
cannot score and is effectively out of the gross competition (and
all players know when this point their round comes) he can pick his
ball up and move to the next hole. Based on the
above format 12 medals will be up for grabs in the men's golf which
is slightly less than at present but easily enough in a field of 60
- 70 golfers. The ladies golf is not very well
represented and a slightly different method should be devised, which
I will not go into here (thank goodness for that I hear you say).
| The reason I am so annoyed is that some
players do not hand in a handicap certificate but simply tell the
recorder what their 'handicap' is. That it is 20, 22
or 25 and they are of a similar standard to me (I played off 11)
is also very frustrating as it means they have a 9 - 16 shot
advantage before we tee off which where I come from is called
cheating. |
| If players want to play with dodgy
handicaps let them play but keep them out of my category please.
If 20 golfers in the field have handicaps of 19 - 28 then why
should they not play against each other regardless of age? |
Anyway, back to the golf at The Games which was
played on an excellent and very difficult golf course.
I have no intention of listing the scores and medal winners as per
the flawed system as described above but am happy to tell you that
the three best gross scores were: Yau-luk Sung (HKG) - 69
Ian Hillier (UK) - 76
Raimo Juuti (Fin) - 77 / Garret Campbell (IRL) 77
The UK team's scores (gross) were: Ian Hillier - 76
Stuart Ross - 89
Graham Marsh - 94
Tony Miskelly - 97
Hamish Barrie - 98
Norbert McGarr - 99
Andy Weir - 99
Frank Clarke - 90 (Disqualified having signed for a 106). Maggie
Gambrill was 2nd in the ladies golf. The guy from
Hong Kong who won with a fantastic score of 69 is an ex teaching
professional and on a par 72 course will tell you just how tough it
was. This makes Ian Hillier's (9 hcp) round equally
remarkable and on any other day would deservedly have won.
To illustrate my point Yau-luk Saung was beaten into 5th place in
the veteran's category which just happens to be mine too.
He was beaten by four players from Thailand who scored net 64, 65,
66 & 67 respectively with handicaps of 18, 20, 22 and 22.
Need I say more? My playing partners on the day of
competition were the very likeable Irishman Hugo Boyce, South
African farmer Jacobus Laubscher and the doctor from Holland, Robert
Walstra. Thoroughly enjoyable five hours in their
company made up for some indifferent golf from all four of us.
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| GM Golf Team |
Mine's a Srixon |
Playing partners |
GB Golf Team |
| If you are a golfer and would like to
comment on the above please use my Guest Book. I don't
claim to be the font of all knowledge but I am convinced most
golfers will agree. If not please let me know. |
| I have been asked by Jan Wall the Aussie
team manager to send her my thoughts on how the golf should /
could be run at the 2009 World Games, as she is on the LOC and has
promised to look at the present system |
| Some golfers are worried that by not having
age categories it will lessen their chances of winning a medal.
Not so chaps. Only the method of categorising us
needs to change. |
| What I am proposing is what happens at
every golf club throughout the UK and probably Europe.
Not sure about elsewhere hence the discrepancy in the handicaps
players turn up with. |
Wednesday 29th & Thursday 30th August
I trained at the track in preparation for the athletics to come and
watched some of the other sport which is always very enjoyable.
I also took the opportunity to do quite a bit of sightseeing in
Bangkok, visiting the temples and palaces and taking a trip on the
river and through the canals. A mixture of beautiful and
awful but mostly interesting. Definitely a case of Ying
and Yang. The Thai people are very calm and friendly and
it was a pleasurable experience. Friday 31st
August & Saturday 1st September
Track & Field Having failed miserably as a
golfer, my round of 94 included a 7 and an 11, which made me
thinking of opening a chain of shops but someone got there before
me, I attempt to become an athlete. to say that
conditions were extremely tough would be an understatement.
The heat and humidity were energy sapping and keeping in the shade
whenever possible was a must. The heats and final
of the 100m were on the Friday and I qualified comfortably for the
final knowing that a couple of my opponents were very good.
On your marks, get set, g-..... who's the Chinaman in the lane next
to me? It was Pramote Ladswwan from Thailand. He
was very quick and won, beating Joszef Schaff the Hungarian and me
into second and third place respectively. Still, a
bronze medal at the World Transplant Games is not bad.
To put it into some sort of perspective, when I was lying in the
Freeman hospital just 8 years ago I reckon I would happily have
settled for this. Come the Saturday it was the
200m first followed by the long jump. I ran a very
respectable 200m but could only finish fourth and my silver medal in
the long jump was really an unexpected bonus. Won by my
favourite Thai, Suwan Samrung and in third place was Irishman John
Cormican
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| My mate Suwan |
Stephen, Terry, GM & André |
Look what I've won. |
On behalf of the athletics squad I would
like to offer my sincere thanks to Barrie Laverick, our manager, who
was everywhere on our behalf querying decisions, getting things put
right and generally being so helpful to us all. Our very
distinguished athletics coach, Femi, deserves heaps of praise too
for his individual help to all those that wanted it. His tips
and warm up techniques were not only innovative but good fun too.
Alison and Darren, our physios, worked extremely hard for us and put
in some very unsociable hours to get us fit enough to compete in
what were very difficult conditions. Thanks to Henry the
team doc too. Our new team manager Lynne Holt was
no doubt working very hard for the benefit of the team and attended
managers' meetings every night across the city which ate into her
time and we are all grateful to her for the hard graft she put in,
mostly with a smile on her face. I am sure the
children's team would echo those sentiments about Carol Davidson,
who incidentally was brave enough to walk across the Bridge over the
River Kwai with Mrs Boggy.
| There were some brilliant performances by
my team mates on the track and field and I have to mention a
few of them, with apologies to all of my other team mates who
performed so well too. A full list of results, times
etc can be found on the TSUK and WTG websites. |
| The star of the team was Stephen Jarvis who
not only won the 100m but broke the world record in the high jump
with a leap of 1.66m |
| Other class performances were produced by
Brian Edwards, Tony Miskelly and Alex Walker in the sprints and
relays. |
| Pete McGouran was outstanding as he moved
into the veteran category and as ever Mick Foster and Derek
Johnson (at 71 years old our oldest competitor) were outstanding
the in the super veterans. |
| Mention must be made of our juniors
particularly the Campbell twins Ashley and Luke who are brilliant
100m sprinters and can only get quicker. |
| My mate Howard Waters won 5 gold medals in
the swimming pool breaking two world records in the process which
by any standards is outstanding. |
The final medal table
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Gold |
Silver |
Bronze |
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| United Kingdom |
100 |
75 |
52 |
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| Australia |
30 |
30 |
27 |
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| USA |
27 |
31 |
23 |
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| Ireland |
10 |
10 |
15 |
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I would like to compliment the Irish team on
their performance at the Games. For a relatively small
country the results they achieve (10th in the medal table) are
outstanding and they were led brilliantly by their manager Colin
White. We shared team meetings, not
only with the Irish but also the Australians and New Zealand teams
who were also staying at our hotel, and at times they were cringe
worthy. Xenophobia and tub thumping have their place but
not at shared meetings. Colin has a wonderful sense of
humour and calm demeanour and he stole the show at the meetings with
his easy relaxed charm. Even the Australians were not
into the 'look how great and big we are stuff' and Jan simply told
her team what was needed and stood back and watched the
performance of others with a smile (I think). That
we could not organise a team photograph when all were at the
appointed venue at the correct time was a shame, but hey these
things happen........don't they? The Gala
Dinner What can I say?
The band were excellent and Mrs Boggy and I were up boogying for a
good part of the evening. The meal which was traditional
Thai fare was not met with great approval by everyone but what do
you expect when in Thailand, egg and chips? I enjoyed
mine.
I don't want to sound
like a moaner but I felt we alienated ourselves by a
ridiculous "Who kidnapped the bear?" performance on stage,
which went on and on and on and.........forever.
What a load of nonsense. It was bad enough at the team
meeting but to have to suffer it again in it's entirety with over
50% of the audience non English speaking was an embarrassment.
The bear was pictured in loads of different places including sat on
a Buddha in a temple. This has to rank as the
biggest faux pas ever in a foreign country. What
would we think if a bunch of Buddhists turned up in church and
placed a sock on the crucifix I wonder? To
inflict this juvenile rubbish on the massed ranks of the world's
transplant athletes, supporters and officials was an insult.
I speak English and didn't understand what it was all about and the
complete indifference by the majority in the hall summed it up.
In summary: Thailand is a beautiful country
and it's people are so friendly I can recommend a visit if you have
never been. Possibly only a couple of nights in Bangkok
though before venturing into the rest of this beautiful Asian jewel.
Following the games Mrs Boggy and I were in Koh Samui for 10 days
and it was magical.
I would like to say a special thank you to everyone who comes as a
supporter. We have become one big happy family and in my view
the supporters are one of the main reasons for that.
The donor families who attend are easily the bravest people at the Games and
on behalf of everyone who has received 'The Gift of Life' I can only say
Thank You! It is not nearly enough, but is all I can say.
They add a different dimension to the Games atmosphere that makes it very
special.
As always it was great fun to meet up with old friends from all parts of the
world, Murray and the Aussies, Pieter, Andre and Nico from the Netherlands,
Borje from Sweden, Suwan from Thailand and of course all of the Irish squad
Colin, Terry, Hugo and the rest. Many new friendships were made,
particularly the guys from NZ who one day must get a cricket team together
and as ever just chatting to folk from all corners of the globe with a
common factor was marvellous. We went on a river trip and met up
with with Derek Bainbridge and his lovely wife Mary (?). He is
the Aussie who rode his bike from Perth to Adelaide to open the Australian
Transplant Games in 2004 when we there.
I can't forget my UK team mates, old and new, who it was a pleasure to be
with and this transplant community that I have embraced just grows and
grows. It doesn't get any better than this.
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| Derek & Mary (Aus) |
My golfing buddies |
I can sum up how I feel about the event by repeating,
"I was just happy to be there!"
I couldn't resist posting the photographs below from our time on Koh Samui.
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| More Thai ladies |
Sunset |
Mrs Boggy |
Boggy & Mr/Mrs
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| My legs are brown |
Blessed by a monk |
WC's at airport |
Golfing heaven |
The 2009
World Transplant Games
August 23rd - 30th 2009
The Gold Coast in Australia
Despite the above review I still hope to be selected and all being well will
be there.
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