The day started with loud music in our room. “I need a hero” from ABBA. It’s the kind of music to put you in a good mood from the very beginning of the day.

At 7:45, we meet on the court. We have referee practice. Which means, warm up, and then some exercises. Mechanics, whistle, counting, moving on the court, showing numbers to the table, everything is drilled. We also ran the bips test. Prerequisite to officiate in certain leagues around the world. When we were done, we went to get breakfast, and get showered.

We had another big music session in the room. This time we listened to Céline Dion, and other gems of French music. We go downstairs to our conference room, and get ready to work.
I am chosen as volunteer for washing the clothes. We have some shirts especially for the camp, and obviously since we do so many different sport sessions.
Presentation from Valentin. He is a Swiss guy, just like me. He talks about goaltending and interference. Especially useful when you officiate the top league players, that can actually jump and do this. Big discussions were sparked when Kuba showed some clips of his, from Euroleague.

 We get a 2nd presentation from Michal. Travel violation. It’s a basic rule, it makes up a lot of the spirit of basketball. But once you go into the details, you see that it can be quite tricky. Especially for us referees, we have to take many different things into account.

11:30: For once we get a break ! We decided to go into the mining factory. We walked to the mine, bought our tickets, and off we go. Lucky we had some Polish referees in the crew, because we wouldn’t understand anything otherwise. The mine is very old, and the guide presenting the tour was a miner at the time.  

Pre-Game before officiating in the afternoon. We watch clips we cut yesterday evening, and we debate among ourselves. With the different points of view from the different cameras, we analyse who should call what. We go deep into mechanics. 3 People officiating is not something we use everyday, for most of us.

Games of the day. We warm up with the young players. The warm-ups are always pretty intense, but it feels good. I officiate the first game, with the kids. Doesn’t matter, they play well, and this means I can concentrate on 3PO mechanics. The crew was full Swiss, with my two teammates being Valentin and Alex. We have a pretty good game overall.

The second game went on, while our group went for the gym session. This one was particularly hard. We had a circuit of medicine ball throwing, sledge pushing and farmer walks, with little rest. Pretty intense when your legs are already tired from the last 2 days.

Then we officiated the last game of the day all together (all the referees). These guys are pros, and it shows on the court.  It’s fast, physical, and so interesting to officiate.

We ate after that, and decided to go watch some clips of the games before going to the sauna. Some of us at least. Some others went directly to the sauna and spent 2 hours there. They will have work later in the night. We joined them in the sauna at 10, 30 minutes before it closed. It was amazing. It’s such a good thing for the tired body. We still watched more clips, and then we went to bed, fearful of the Yoyo test that is coming tomorrom morning.