It Really Does Take a Village

All competitors require a support team of some size even if it’s not more than a Navigator for Marathon. At this level however, it’s truly a team sport. The amount of teamwork and sheer grunt work support that goes into competing a team at a Championship is amazing. Philip Needs and Judy Fryer (with help from Diane and Burger Bob Koopman) keep the team fed while at the venue. Chef de Equip Chester Weber and Assistant Jennifer Matheson attend meetings every day. In fact, Jennifer told me that they had been so busy that she had managed a total of 25 hours sleep from the previous Saturday until Friday the 14th! The Team – Coach Boyd Excell, all the competitors, grooms and the Chef de Equips – meets daily for schedule information and instruction. For Marathon, we had someone videotaping each Pony Team USA competitor in each hazard while another person timed splits (time each competitor as the go from gate D to gate E and the route they took). This information isn’t just to give us Yanks something to do. Coach Boyd Excell uses the information to tell our competitors which route may be more difficult than expected or, conversely, which option to a particular gate is consistently faster. Likewise, our competitors share information to assist the team’s effort. Each competitor, especially those with an “early go”, is debriefed for information that may help teammates with a later start. All in all, it’s much more of a team sport here than the CDEs we go to at home.