Category: Uncategorized

The only event we had on Saturday was rowing. It included the A finals (and medal ceremonies) for the men and women’s single sculls, double sculls, coxless pairs, and the men’s coxless four.

Photos for everything can be found by clicking here.

The big race

The most exciting race of the day (for us) was the final of the women’s double sculls. Our friend Elise Laverick was racing for Great Britain with her partner Anna Bebington. It was going to be a tough race for them; while they had beaten most or all of the crews at some point or another, a couple of them had posted really strong times in the heats and reps earlier this week.

Elise and Anna seemed to get a good start, and were well in the mix in the first 500 meters. Some of the other boats seemed to take a bit of a push in the second 500 meters, which pushed them back to about fourth. But in the second half of the race China started dropping back and Elise and Anna really started going strong and put themselves in the lead pack. The last five hundred was incredible, and all three medallists (New Zealand, Germany, and Great Britain) crossed the finish line within ~2 feet of each other (0.22 seconds). Elise and Anna put in a massive effort in the last 250–500 meters to close the gap. Perhaps the best part was that in the last 500 it was clear that the top three boats had really separated themselves from the rest, and were going to be on the podium. We found out later that Elise/Anna were the quickest boat in the last 1000 meters of the race.

I was lucky enough to get tickets to the “friends and family” stand for both rowing finals days. Each country’s supporters group together, and it seems the Commonwealth countries (GB, Australia, New Zealand, etc.) have particularly big contingents, though the US group was pretty big, too. Life in the stands is fun, since so many people know each other from various rowing-related activities and events. But it also gets really messy… for the cost of one pint of beer in London, you can buy eight from the Olympics concessions stands. One GB support or another seemed to bringing a box filled with beer cups up to the stands every few minutes or so. That got interesting…

Luckily we got to meet up with Elise after the race. (Anna had to go to drug testing, which was literally taking hours. She wasn’t done until three hours after they got in.) That’s where I snapped this picture.

Other great races

Michelle Guerette from the USA took a surprising silver in the women’s single sculls event. The Belarus sculler (who had won the last three world championships, I believe) was pushed to bronze. It was an amazing performance for her, and she put in a huge push in the last 500 meters to put herself there. She was featured in a New York Times feature article on rowing earlier this year, so it great to see her success match some of the coverage of her.

The Great Britain men’s double scullers also took bronze. While Australia looked awesome in the event, Matt Wells and Steven Rowbotham look great and took bronze in style.

In a great race, the Great Britain men’s coxless four took gold. This boat has been the “flagship” of the mens rowing squad since 2000. While GB was in the pack, they weren’t leading for most of the race. They stayed near the leaders and put in one hell of a massive push in the last 250 meters to win it. The leaders up until that point (Australia) seemed to crumble once their lead was lost, and ended up losing by about half a length. It was particularly cute when the four did their row-past after the medals ceremony and the sister of the stroke-man (Andy Triggs-Hodge) jumped the fence and swam out into the lake to congratulate her brother.

The men’s single sculls race was as fascinating as ever. Alan Campbell of Great Britain got a great start and was leading early. But the lead switched several times until Olaf Tufte of Norway crossed the line first, with Czech Republic in silver and Mahe Drysdale of New Zealand in bronze. Mahe was predicted to do better, but I heard through the grapevine that he had a bit of a stomach bug earlier this week, which couldn’t have helped. Alan probably could have done better as well, but he had several weeks out of the boat this year for knee surgery. That Alan got into the A final is one hell of an accomplishment after that!

Friday for us was Gymnastics and Beach Volleyball day.

Gymnastics

Our first event was the Women’s Gymnastics Individual All-Around Final. Since it started at 11am, we managed to get there with plenty of time to spare so that we could experience a bit of the Olympic Green before going in. Since it had rained the day before, the skies were clear and the bright sun made it VERY hot outside.

We had nosebleed seats, just 4–5 rows from the top of the arena, but because it wasn’t terribly big, we still had great views of the action. The American women were predicted to do very well, as were the Chinese women. All of the 24 competitors were but into four groups for the four “stations” (vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise). The Chinese and Americans were in the same group along with the Russians.

The first two events for the Chinese/American group went okay, with no girls clearly winning. But after the balance beam the eventual winner, Liukin of the USA had a BIG lead, something like 0.4 points above the next (Chinese) girl. The floor exercise was okay for the Chinese girl, but went very well for both American women. Liukin took the gold and Shawn Johnson the silver.

It was actually pretty difficult to watch gymnastics effectively. There are four events going on simultaneously, so it was good that the top girls were all in the same group. But the worst part was that spectators had so little information. The scoreboards just showed the total points for the top three athletes, and little else. Even the scores that were displayed after judging each event were only shown for the briefest of moments, in some cases literally seconds, before they were cleared to display the name of the next competitor. In the end I had to hand write the scores down so I could figure out who needed what to win. Spectators at home miss the spectacle, but have so much more and better information!

After gymnastics we made our way to the Olympic Green “Super Store” where we managed to find a few things (pins, flags, etc.) that we’d been looking for. Though it was a huge space, there was still a good 20–30 minute queue to get inside!

Beach Volleyball

As my previous post mentioned, this sport kicks ass. It’s a serious sport, with both technical ability and physical prowess/stamina required, but it’s also just SO MUCH FUN. A few reasons why:

• Great action: There is a lot of back and forth, lead changes and the like. Though a lot of matches finish with one team winning two sets to none, it certainly doesn’t seem like that during the match. It’s much easier to stay interested when leads can change so quickly.
• Quick matches: They rarely last more than an hour.
• Lots of action: Little time in between points/sets, and when there are breaks in the action they’re short.
• Perfect size court: Small enough that two people can cover it effectively, but big enough that it’s still possible for teams to find holes.
• Entertainment: Organisers go above and beyond to make it fun. Dancers during the breaks (more scantily dressed than the athletes, by the way) and announcers that really try to rev up the crowd. Even the Fuwa’s get involved (the Beijing 2008 mascots). Simply an awesome time.

I HIGHLY recommend seeing it in person if you ever can. After that match we are definitely going to try and catch as many beach volleyball matches as we can during London’s 2012 Olympics!

Other stuff

Friday was also American food day… unintentionally. After the gymnastics we went to the Super Store, and by the time we came out it was getting really late and we still hadn’t eaten. The exit of the Super Store was about 10 meters away from the entrance to the McDonald’s. It has been about 3 or 4 years since I last ate at a McDonald’s, but then we go to one in Beijing. Oh, well.

Dinner was at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was just around the corner (in Beijing terms) from the Beach Volleyball venue and they served dinner late, which was good because Beach Volleyball runs late. So I also had a chance to get a really good quality hamburger in Beijing. We forgot until we were there that it was a Friday… because we were there so late an American-style cover band kicked off just after we sat down. If you follow me on Twitter (check it out here), you’ll have read that it became particularly surreal when they busted out with a Pink Floyd song.

I realize I’m posting this a bit late, but hope to catch up shortly with today’s (Saturday’s) action!

That is all.

Thursday was wrestling day for us. Unfortunately, freestyle wrestling (the traditional US style) takes place next week, so we saw the Greco-Roman competition. We had tickets for the heats up to the semi-finals in the morning, and then the medal rounds in the evening.

It was surprisingly interesting. At first it was a bit difficult to work out the rules and scoring, particularly when neither of the wrestlers could flip each other. We managed to get a little brochure from the info booth that did a decent job explaining it, though. (I’d summarize it here, but doubt anyone is that interested.)

Future Olympics spectators take note: ALWAYS stop by the information booth before the competition! That’s the place where you can get brackets, race times, and brochures to explain the sports. Highly recommended!

The medal rounds were our first of the Olympics and were quite emotional. The ceremonies were immediately after the matches, and well done. Wrestling is a bit odd in that there are two bronze medallists. In the 84kg category ceremony, one of the bronze medallists (from Sweden) took off his medal and threw it to the mat just after he received it. Pretty poor form if you ask me, even for the most hyper-competitive of people. All of the rest went off without a hitch.

We saw the rounds and medal ceremonies for three weight classes: 84, 96, and 120kg. It was fascinating to see the differences in how each wrestled. The 84kg guys were really nimble, and there was a lot of action on the mat. The 120kg guys didn’t move nearly as quickly but were incredibly powerful. It was great to learn to appreciate a new sport.

As I write this, we’re on the train to the city to see gymnastics and beach volleyball. Gymnastics is supposed to be the women’s all-around final with an American girl as the favorite. Needless to say, we’re really excited! (And the rain yesterday cleared the skies… We can see blue sky today!)