Well it is an Olympic event, and if I had told myself 6 months ago that I would turn around from an Olympic event, I would have slapped myself. And it was worth it. The setting was gorgeous as the big picture indicates. There is this beautiful lake up by the Ming Tombs, a tourist
attraction even without Olympic racing, and on a blue sky day, I couldn't think of a better place to be. So there's that pagoda in the middle of the lake, then a long track that's part of the 2.5km course where the running and swimming take place. I had come late and missed the swimming, which I really regret, but was able to catch the transition from biking to running and enjoyed that. It was cool that everyone was biking and running in their swimming uniform. Wait, did I mention that this was the women's triathlon? Well there you go. An American was in the leaderpack at the start of the running segment (10km) and eventually finished 4th, but an Australian named Snowsill ran away from the field, winning by over a minute. The up close viewing really made me understand how hard the triathlon really is. While I think most people would argue that the marathon is a more grueling cardiovascular workout, as the cycling portion of the triathlon really does give the lungs a break, the triathlon reigns supreme in terms of sheer muscular fatigue. I mean I was cringing just watching those girls bike uphill and then run their 
hearts out for 50 minutes in the baking sun. And to think that they had already swam 1500 meters. Snowsill finished in just under 2 hours and I bet she's still sore. Did you know? Lance Armstrong used to be a competitive triathlete. Yeah you didn't know that. You welcome.Despite my previous fears, I successfully found a cab by hitchhiking with 2 American women. They were in-law relatives of an American rower who had just won gold, and they described to me the details of the gold medal. Did you know? The medal's are all carved with the specific event's names in English, and of course have that ring of white jade on the back. Boy I'd like one of those. The women were impressed by my Mandarin and thought I had had the best summer ever, which of course is true, and one of them said, "I have a hunch that [coming to the Olympics] will become a pattern for you." Hmmm, I don't know. And I'll get to that in another post.
After a quick workout on my last day as a member of Total Fitness, Vivian came over and we headed to Gymnastics. The venue was on the Olympic Green, the same complex that holds the Bird's Nest, Watercube and many other Olympic venues. Have I blogged about this place? It's Olympic extravagance meets Tiananmen Square, where tons of open space are sparsely filled with flashy lights/speakers and Olympic stores. To get there, I take the new 10 line to Bei Tu Cheng, where it intersects with the new 8 line, the Olympic line. Although the two lines share the same subway stop, you actually have to get out of the stop, walk about 300 meters, show your ticket, and then go through security before re-entering the subway. While walking out of the 10 train, you can actually see the 8 trains, even though they're about a half hour of security away. But this is good because it ensure that there's no security at the actual venues.
Vivian was REALLY EXCITED about the gymnastics. As a former gymnast, she explained to me the nuances of a sport I've always marveled at but never understood. I mean I think a standing back flip is one of the hardest athletic feats to do, and these people do that on one leg on a balance beam. I enjoyed women's uneven bar the most, followed by trampoline (almost as fun as it sounds) with men's vault the lamest event of the night. The trampoline consisted of more than just jumping up really high, although that certainly did factor in. The difficulty lay not only in performing multiple flips in mid-air, but also in landing near the center of the trampoline in order to not lose air on the succeeding jump. And the flips are pretty hard too. A Chinese girl won that in rather dominating fashion, if one can dominate a trampoline. In the uneven bars, Russian-American Nastia Luikin shown, performing a great routine and as far as I could tell, flawlessly. She also managed to keep every single facial muscle perfectly still, not just during the routine, but during the entire event, the medal ceremony, and probably her entire life. Two other Chinese gymnasts, who are about as old as Google, also performed superbly, but I was surprised that the lesser of the gymnasts was awarded a higher score, which happened to tie Luikin. The Chinese gymnast was awarded gold because apparently, she had had a higher lower score than Nastia. So China won gold and bronze, and the US won silver, and no one was really happy with those results, especially Luikin, who really could be made of marble. But at least she won't have to wait 5 years for her license. I don't know which would be a worst idea - riding shotgun to a Chinese gymnast, or attending Nastia's wedding.
On Tuesday morning and afternoon, I accomplished absolutely nothing. I was resting up from those 2 events (following these Games are tiring!) and had tickets for Crystal and I for track & field that night. Still, I intended to update this blog, do some reading, register for classes in Dublin...hey my life isn't that exciting when not attending Olympic events. Well Crystal and I head to the Nest and even before taking our seats, we order 8 beers. We go big in Beijing. Actually a little known fact is that these events are one of the best places to get drunk. They sell beer (Tsingdao, Yanjing and Budweiser) at 5 kuai a can and 8 kuai a bottle, an unbelievable bargain especially when you consider that a Bud at Fenway Park costs $6, and a Samuel Adams costs $8. I do not get why the venue beer was so cheap, but I'm going to treat it as one of those "Don't ask don't tell" scenarios and cheers to it. So yeah, for 40 kuai, about 6 bucks, we had an octet of beer. We had to ask for them to get a box as they just handed us 8 cups - the attendants were clearly not used to being asked for 8 beers. Noobs.
Our seats were next to two Americans. This would normally be cool, as USA chants become much more manageable, but it was a lot cooler when one of the Americans leaned over and said, "Crystal?" Apparently the two of them are at the Columbia program here with Peter Kong, and Crystal had met the guy when hanging out with Peter. I'd say small world but it's more like small stadium. The highlights of the night were clearly the high jump finals, the 1500m finals, the discus finals, the 200m qualifers and the women's 100 hurdles. The lowlight was the women's 400 meter, when Sanya Richards, whom I had been whole heartedly cheering, choked on the final straightaway and went from comfortably first to barely holding on for 3rd. I saw the whole collapse unfold and really felt her pain, even before reading about it on ESPN. An even worst collapse happened in the 100 hurdles, where American Lolo Jones led the race going into the 9th hurdle, which she hit with her lead leg and totally lost her balance. She ended up finishing 7th and could have cried right there. At least in that event another American took gold. The high jump is always an exciting event to watch, as every successful jump is greeted by cries of "OH!" or the Chinese equivalent of that. I rooted for a German named Spank, cause he was named Spank, but he got spanked by the bar at 2.32 meters. A charismatic Russian whom we all liked was the only guy to clear 2.36m and thus won gold. He then tried to go for 2.42m and an Olympic record, but just barely clipped it 3 times. Still pretty sick though. Surprisingly about half the high jumpers were white - my theory is that a flat butt is very important in high jumping. Anyways, discuss was also really fun but I forget who won that. Probably a Belarussian or another Eastern European. And then in the 200, we saw Bolt blow out the field like always. I snapped a bunch of pictures of him, and of course last night he topped Michael Johnson's ridiculous world record and now he's positively the fastest man ever. I'm kind of obsessed with him, but here is not the time to share it.
Yesterday, Wednesday, my dad arrived in Beijing. This kinda took me by surprise because I had thought he was coming a day later. Anyways I had a freestyle wrestling ticket and he had field hockey so we went our separate ways. I had 66kg and 74kg again, because I wanted to see Ben Askren wrestle, but unfortunately he got eliminated in the morning session. Very unfortunate. These tickets, which I had bought on cosport, somehow put me in the front section that was
actually gated. I got there early and moved right up to the front row and snapped some pictures like the one on the left. As luck would have it, I again sat next to a wrestling parent. This one was a Canadian wrestler who had already been eliminated, although I learned that he was actually an American who went to Stanford, but his mother was Canadian so he had dual citizenship and thus made that Canadian team. Freestyle was again very confusing and not as similar to folkstyle as I had thought it would be. While grabbing of the legs was legal and thus neutral was the wrestling I was used to, there was almost no mat wrestling. If there was a period of inaction on the mat, the ref would blow his whistle and both wrestlers would return to neutral. There are no points for an escape, and a takedown ranges from 1 to 3 points. I learned that Olympic wrestling rules change a lot, and they are now in a Round system. While wrestling has always been divided up into 3 rounds, now each round has a winner (if it's tied, the last scorer wins it. if it's tied 0-0, there's a weird wrestle off), and so you need to win 2 out of 3 rounds. It's really lame and I can discuss a match in which this Indian wrestler almost got screwed before pulling a victory out of his ass. Btw, there is about a 20 minute break between some matches - one wrestler had 3 matches in a 70 minute span. Simply absurd. A Russian legend won the 74kg class for his 3rd Olympic gold (to go with 6 world championships) and got adored by the Russians in the crowd. He even jumped into the stands to hug his fans, despite protests from his Chinese security guards. It was really a site to behold, but unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries at that point.I gotta wrap this up cause once again I'm getting tired - look for an edit in the near future. After the matches, I went out to get a cab, but so did everyone else so there was none to be had. Well I walked down the street a ways and stopped by 4 Americans in USA Wrestling shirts. I pause and look at the shortest American and listen to their conversation while peering for a cab. The American looked very familiar... After about a minute, I stepped in and asked, "Hey, are you Jake Dietchler?" Jake is the 18 year old American Greco-Roman wrestler I had seen last week. The kid looks dumbstruck, then exclaims, "Yeah" in muffled shock like you would if a random stranger came up to you and called you by name. I replied, "I sat next to your family last week when you wrestled." Jake thought that was really cool and asked for my name and shook my hand and all. He was really down to earth and chill, because he's not a celebrity and was totally not used to be treated even as a pseudo-celebrity. He had just been recognized on the streets of Beijing by someone whom he probably didn't suspect spoke English. After asking about his matches, whether he'd continue wrestling Greco even though college wrestling is different, I got his autograph.
Stay tuned for my chance encounter with 2 other Olympic athletes. These ones were more recognizable - in fact, I'd wager that most of my readers will have heard of LeBron James and Yao Ming.
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