Day 2, From the Bird's Nest

After finishing my last day at McD and getting off early, I hit up a swim and then skipped dinner at the house to make sure I got to the National Stadium with plenty of time. Arriving at the stadium and knowing I was about to enter gave me this really crazy feeling—I guess I just felt extremely lucky to not only be going to the Olympics, but simply to just be an American college student over in China.

This time security moved much quicker and seemed better organized...or maybe it was just because I got there earlier—5:30 for a 7:00 event. Once getting inside the view of the stadium with the sun going down behind it was awesome. Since I hadn't eaten, I looked for an outpost. For pumping so much money into the stadium and the Olympics, you'd think they'd have some good food, but no. All they had was some crappy rice and what was supposed to be pork and veggies (it was hard to tell). After waiting in line for a while, I got to talking with a guy from England. He must have been smart—he'll be a freshman at Oxford next semester. After getting our crappy food, I got to meet his dad, and then started inquiring about preparations for the London Olympics four years from now. He said it's going fine, but don't expect anything on this scale. Apparently the Chinese have just poured in so much money (I think he said $20 billion) and of course they have so much more manpower.

Anyway, I got to my seat, which of course wasn't the best, but who cares, I was in the Bird's Nest. The view was still fine. The stadium was amazing. The huge TV displays were so clear and crisp, even from my seat. Things were really mechanized. Instead of rakes for the jumping pits, they used these mechanical things that smoothed it out (see pic). And for the discus, instead of having people run out and gather the discs, which would certainly slow things down and could also be dangerous, they had remote control cars that went out and collected the discs, bringing them back to the throwing area.

One of the first events was the first round of the 1500m, an event I was really looking forward to. It was pretty awesome. All US runners advanced, including Bernard Legat, the world champion, and I believe the American record holder. I also got to see Tyson Gay, our 100m hope to take on the two Jamaican favorites: Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell. Gay also advanced. I'll be watching these final races for sure. I was happy I got to see a medal ceremony. In the men's shot put, a US guy took second place to a Polish guy, so unfortunately instead of hearing our National Anthem, we had to hear Poland's. But the race of the night was definitely the last one: the women's 10,000 meter final. The people to my left who I'd befriended over our time together that night decided to leave—guess they weren't into distance races. Anyway, a US runner Flannagan was in 8^th place for the first half of the race behind a huge group of Africans. Slowly she move her way up, picking off one runner at a time. In the last few laps I was getting kind of nervous, but she ended pulling through and getting a bronze in a one of the fastest 10K's ever run.

That would have been a great way to end the night, except it wasn't over. I had to find a cab. Buses weren't running anymore and the subway was not convenient. I ended up waiting close to an hour to get a cab. I walked so far toward my house that the cab ride was actually almost not worth it. Well, it was still a good night. I give Beijing an A+ for facilities, volunteers, and organization, but a D- for transportation and concessions (there were more problems that weren't mentioned).

By the way, I freaking overslept this morning...my alarm went off at 6am (my ticket was for 9am), but I didn't wake up before it was too late.