Visas Visas Visas

Today the spirit within the Bont house lifted tremendously when we were finally issued our visas for China. About a month ago when we first went to the Chinese Embassy and applied for visas we were denied and told that it was impossible unless we were residents. The only other option was to fly back to our home countries and attain visas. Trying to fly back to New Zealand in between races and the cost of a flight really wasn't an option at all.

But Bill Begg doesn't believe in the word impossible. He got in contact with Rex the president of the Chinese Skating Federation and together they worked really hard to try and improve the situation. After weeks of phone calls back and forth between China and Switzerland, tons of emails and hours on msn we started making progress. At the end of last week it looked like we would get them but needed just a few more final documents from the Chinese Authorities.

At the start of this week with the departure date closing in and still no final papers from China we decided to drive to Frankfurt and try our luck in Germany. We lined up outside the Chinese Consulate after driving four hours only to be told again that it was impossible. It was frustrating because we have been able to attain visas without all this hassle the previous two years, but now with the Olympics in China all the policies have changed.

With Bill being at the Junior European Championships Cheryl Begg toke over the case and chased everything up. Cheryl had an appointment at the Chinese Consulate in Zurich this morning to drop everything off with the final papers and hopefully attain the visas. At midnight last night the final documents had still not arrived nor when we woke up this morning. Running out of time she made a few frantic phone calls to Rex and the papers finally came through just before she left. We all finally have visas one to two days before departure.

It was not only the Bont Wheels Team in this situation, ten other international skaters from various teams were in the same boat and the boat was slowly sinking. So I think we would all like to thank Rex, Bill and Cheryl for all their hard work.