So last night while writing the post, my cousin Lincoln hit me up on Facebook chat with offers for tickets to the Spain-Germany basketball game. Obviously I said yes, basketball tickets are harder to find in this city than Sri Lankans. The 8:15am meeting time wasn't ideal but I can sleep when I die. The basketball arena at Wukesong University obviously did not have the same architect as the Watercube or the Bird's Nest because it is a masterpiece in fugliness. I don't even want to share a picture from there because I don't want to ruin the sanctity of my blog. I think the idea of the design was to resemble a large structure made from bamboo, which would have been sweet if they used bamboo, but using fiber optic glass material to simulate bamboo - epic fail. The game however was sweet. Spain was the big favorite going in despite their overtime squeakout against China as they boast a ton of interesting NBA players. Though Germany's Dirk Nowitzki was the best player on the court, Spain had 2 Gasols and the 4 best point guards. In fact, Jose Calderon of the Raptors, Juan Navarro also of the Raptors and Ricky Rubio all started the game on the bench, as Raul Lopez was the starting point. Nonetheless, the big story was definitely Ricky Rubio, to whom Steve Daroci alerted me. Guess how old he is? Try 17, the youngest basketball player in these games. I mean, he was freaking born in the 90s, and is regarded as a child prodigy. I saw him on TV pickpocketing the overmatched Chinese guards but seeing him in person was special.
Let's not cut any corners here: I officially have a mancrush on Ricky Rubio. He's lightning quick, Iverson-esque, with the ability to totally lose his man off the dribble. Apparently he had a double OT game in a U-16 tournament where he put up 51, 24, 12 and 7. Those numbers are so high I don't even need to explain what stats they refer to - any way you cut it, they're impressive. His penchant for steals is remarkable, although the German guards were nothing special either so its unclear how this skill will translate in the game against the US. I couldn't find any faults with his ball-handling or decision making as he didn't make a single turnover but I get the feeling he's not a terrific playmaker. He's also not a great shooter either, but if you think about it, what great point guard was a good shooter when they entered the league? Among the elite PGs in the NBA today, only Nash is an elite shooter. Chris Paul, Deron Williams, even guys like Derrick Rose, Dwyane Wade and Iverson are much better drivers than shooters. The biggest problem I see with Rubio though is that he clearly acts like a pre-Madonna, so much so that I'm surprised he's Spanish not Italian. Against China he dramatically bitched about a foul call against him and I saw him waltz back to the bench after his steal and layup led to a timeout call. When you're a "child prodigy" in a sport that doesn't have child prodigies, I can see why one might be a tad arrogant. Well this will affect him when he goes to the NBA and I would bank on him not being rookie of the year. His rookie year will probably resemble Rajon Rondo's. But I'm getting way ahead of myself, he's not nearly strong enough now to defend someone like Deron or Dwyane...whom coincidentally play on Team USA. Count on a US romp of Spain by at least double digits. I guarantee it.
I grabbed a quick Zhan Bing for lunch and hurried to find out where my boxing match in the evening was, then went off to the Olympic Village to meet up with Chirona, who is leaving Beijing in a few days and hadn't seen the Bird's Nest yet. Well apparently the new Green line that services the Olympic Green and Village is only accessible to people with Olympic tickets for that day, so we had to walk from the nearest other subway stop in a torrential Beijing downpour. The view was nothing I hadn't seen before although the torch was kinda cool, but I'll have more of that when I actually go into the Nest.
Boxing in the evening was also sweet. I'd never attended a boxing match and was expecting a Las Vegas big money showdown with people cramped close to the ring yelling their heads off. Well that part of me is massively disappointed as the nearest seats were like 60 feet from the boxers. Furthermore the style of fighting was so different from what I expected - the fighters didn't go for knockouts but rather needed to land as many body punches as they could to get points. The boxers, in the 64 and 69kg weight classes, were ultra quick and most of the punches were too fast for me to catch. Seriously there'd be a series of blurs and then one fighter's score would increase by 1. While interesting and kept everyone on their toes, boxing rarely featured any comebacks because if a boxer was down by 8 in the final round, they really had no chance to come back. There's no pin like in wrestling because knockouts are nearly impossible. I did my research though and found 2 compelling boxers. The first was the reigning gold medalist, the Thai legend Manus Boonjumnong, whom Wikipedia says spent 2 years partying after winning at Athens. He certainly showed charisma and an ability to entertain the crowds. Possibly the quickest of them all, Manus also displayed unnerving laziness, often sagging his arms way down, and other times overacting like a praying mantis. The crowd loved these and actually broke out into laughter. Manus got huge applauses, and some Tai Guo Jia You chants, and beat his Japanese opponent 8-1. The other fighter I had my eye on was John Joe Joyce, the triple J from Ireland. I actually don't know much about him but I saw a Youtube highlight of him and his initials are JJJ and I'm going to Ireland in less than a month, so that was enough for me. His match against a Dominican fighter proved to be the best of the night. Down 7-4 after 2 periods, Joyce stormed back in the third and took an 8-7 then 10-8 lead. However the Dominican landed two punches in quick succession in the fourth to tie it at 10, and then the fourth (last) period ended in an 11-11 draw. I expected an overtime, but apparently the decision was left to the judges who chose the DR. I was crushed, as was Joyce, but such are the Olympics.
I was going to leave after the 64 kg bouts ended, but I hadn't realized that my ticket also covered the 69kg round. The third matchup featured an American against a Russian so I was like, I gotta stay for that. Totally worth it. I moved seats to get near an American flag and started screaming USA, USA and 美国加油! His name was Demetrius Andrade and he crushed the Russian 11-3 in a rematch of the Cold War. For some reason, most of the Chinese people sided with the Russian.
In conclusion - Olympic boxing gets my thumb up. Really enjoyed myself there. Stay tuned tomorrow as I need to talk about allegiances, which I had meant to do in the previous post.
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