The Olympics!

I've been AWOL for a while now, my apologies.  Toward the end of my month at home, I got temp hired by the academic publisher I worked for briefly in 2008.  Wooo, much-needed money!!!  But it was earned by helping create a book index under extreme time pressure, so my last week was pretty much entirely spent in a cramped office entering code into LaTeX (pronounced lah-teck) and tracking down tiny differences that made five different entries for one thing.  Sort of interesting, but only because it was SHORT-TERM.

Once back in England, I was able to fulfill a dream I've had since 1992 and watch the Olympics live.  In 1992 the Olympics were in Barcelona, I was nine years old, and I fell in love with them.  Ever since, I've wanted to be there in person, and luckily for me, they came to within striking distance of a place I was actually living.  The online ticketing system was truly horrendous and made me despair of seeing much of anything: there was an initial lottery, then 6am releases of tickets during which the servers would crash, then miscellaneous releases as the weeks went past.  I got most of my tickets through this last method, though the website more often than not would show a session available, let you request them, then say there were no tickets.  Repeat ad frustratum.  In the end, here's what I saw, in order:

Road Cycling
This involved a very early morning to get from Cambridge to London, then across the city, then out on another train to Box Hill to line the road.  The course looped around the hill nine times, so we got to see changes in the groups.  The cyclists were really close to us bystanders, and you could feel the whoosh of wind off them.  Very exciting.  It was disappointing for GB fans that they didn't win anything -- especially since their team featured Bradley Wiggins, who had just become the first Brit to win the Tour de France.  Still, it was a festive atmosphere and a fun day out.

Here are Team GB leading the peloton, which is the main group that is behind the breakaway group that has sprinted ahead.  GB are in dark blue with white helmets.

Volleyball
Dominican Republic vs. Russia
USA vs. Brazil

This was dumb luck based on the bracket, but it was fantastic.  This pair of teams were in the gold medal match last year, so it was quality stuff.  Plus, there were two Stanford players on the court, one of whom (Logan Tom) made the winning spike.  Sweet!  Here she is serving.





Women's football (soccer)
Great Britain vs. Brazil
This may have been my favorite event, even though my understanding of soccer is limited to "They get the ball in the goal.  This doesn't happen very often."  Mainly, it was because the atmosphere in Wembley Stadium, which usually hosts professional teams, was absolutely electric; people were excited and cheering and doing the wave...  It's more than you get at most Stanford football games, that's for sure.  And GB scored the only goal of the match right in front of our seats, within the first two minutes!  Here's the view approaching the stadium and from my seat.

Canoe/kayak sprint
This was a bit of a dud, to be honest.  In addition to being somewhat boring to watch, the action was described by the two least informed commentators possible.  They clearly knew nothing at all about the sport, so the man basically said, "This is close!  Ohh!" over and over, without even informing us who had won, while the woman clearly had a fact sheet of which teams had won which recent competitions and just read them out.  Here's an actual exchange they had:

MAN: "That's a false start in lane 2.  What are the rules for a false start?"
WOMAN: [Looooong pause.]  "I don't actually know, to be honest.  I assume they'll restart."

Wow.

The most exciting thing about this event was that it was held at Eton Dorney, where all the amazing rowing had taken place earlier in the week -- GB kicking ass, including a Trinity Hall alumnus (Tom James) getting gold in the men's four.  Sitting right at 500m from the end, though, meant that a bunch of starts happened right in front of me.  Here's an example.

Women's wrestling
Medal matches for both weight classes
Yes, I wanted to see this since I wrestled in high school.  The matches went by really quickly, but it was again a loud, supportive atmosphere -- especially for the gold-medal winner, a Japanese woman who has won the gold now all three times that women's wrestling has been in the Olympics.  But I have to say, I was not impressed by the fact that tied periods are settled by picking a ball out of a bag, which gives one person a massive advantage such that she's almost guaranteed to win the period.  Sports should not depend on something so arbitrary.  Anyway, here's a shot of an American (in red) who eventually got bronze.

Sailing

So this one was quite far away.  So much so that by the time we got there, we caught the end of a semifinal, and then there was a delay because the wind died...And then they moved to a location farther away, which would have been fine except that they had no feed for the giant screen anymore because the BBC had packed up and left.  Boo.  But a gorgeous day at the seaside!

And so ended my firsthand experience of the Olympics.  London did a fantastic job of organizing travel such that everything went very smoothly.  I have yet to see the Olympic park, though, because none of my venues were inside it, and you had to have a ticket just to go in.  Oh well, it's not going anywhere, I guess.  I'm just so grateful to have gotten to see the things I did.