I don’t think I’d have ever gone to Dubai if it weren’t for this tournament, and I don’t think I’ll go back for leisure; I’m just not into modern cities, though to be fair to the UAE, I didn’t explore outside of the square mile we stayed. It was still absolutely unreal; as the dust (and smog?) settled, the skyline and horizon became crisp, highlighting the intricacies of all the buildings in the backdrop. It’s beautiful in a completely different way than the mountain ranges I’ve become accustomed to in Colorado.
I talked with some ex-pats on the UAE Masters team about the city; they raved about how safe it was, especially for their kids. The streets were fairly bare, save the ultimate players you can easily spot, getting lively around 8:00PM. There were kids bustling around the courtyards, playing cricket and other lawn games from afternoon to well after dusk. I was really curious about the buildings, existing and under construction; when you walked around, it felt like a city the size of Boulder, people wise. They said the entire skyline didn’t exist twelve years ago, there was massive expansion of this particular area, JBR, recently. Most of the buildings weren’t close to reaching full occupancy, but more were being built with the expectation of exponential population growth, mainly from neighboring countries going through unrest.
I think everyone we interacted with spoke English, and most of the signage was in both Arabic and English. You could hear the call to prayer from the Walk (the strip that paralleled the condos mainly lined with restaurants) and our balcony, which was neat. I wish I’d visited a mosque while we were there, but the schedule and nature of the tournament didn’t quite allow for it. Lesson learned: don’t book a flight for 2:25AM the night after finals, for so many different reasons.
The tournament itself was really well run, the TD and entire volunteer crew did a fantastic job. There was always water, a line of much-needed shade tents on every sideline, two or three volunteers assigned to each field to collect stats, scores and manage time between points and calls. Tourney central had wifi for midday updates, there was a full on camera crew at the stadium and I didn’t hear too many complaints about the livestream from home. They brought in Evan Lepler and Megan Tormey for commentary, both did an incredible job with calling the game and color commentary (yes, I’ve totally watched Finals already). The live.wcbu2015.org website was so easy to use, I remember trying to follow along in Lecco and relying on Twitter for everything; this site seemed to be updated in real-time and was easily searchable by division and country. Mad props to whoever designed and contracted for the website, would love to see this format again for London this year.
Most importantly, the camels. It never got old seeing the camels traipse up and down the beach, and sometimes through the middle of a game. They are adorable, being caught downwind of where they posted-up was not.Dubai Fact: camel racing is a sport and it’s on TV, and they breed the hump out of the camels for performance sake.
