Beijing Badger: Raining Olympic Champions

Me in the Bird's Nest

Trust me it rained hard!

I completed my Olympic Games experience with two more visits - Wednesday was Men's Wrestling and today (Thursday) was Athletics at the Bird's Nest. The wrestling was special because it was a relatively small venue and I was quite close to the action. I saw the men's 66 and 74 kg finals and the winners were really quite awesome - fast and strong.

The Wrestlers

The wrestling venue

Somehow not the same as Beach Volleyball!

Turkish Gold in 66 kg.

However, I really wanted to see the Olympic Stadium and went out in search of a ticket at Beitucheng subway station which turned out to be a super market of ticket scalping. There must have been over a hundred people selling tickets with many more buyers milling around. Some of the prices being asked were quite scary! Anyway I found a ticket for about $100 Can. and counted myself fortunate. When I agreed to buy the ticket the scalper motioned me to come away from the crowds to pay. We literally went behind a sign warning that scalping tickets was illegal! It was in English so I guess the seller couldn't read it.

The Olympic Stadium is everything you have heard and more - except it doesn't have a roof! Well there is a roof for the crowd, but the athletes are under the open sky. I guess because it 'never rains in Beijing'. Well this morning it rained! Despite my umbrella, I was thoroughly wet by the time I got to the stadium. But it was worse for the athletes, especially the javelin throwers, several of whom I saw fall. Canadian Scott Russell had the best qualifying throw in his group in the pouring rain. At least the ladies 20k walk didn't seem to mind the rain. I also saw the decathlon 100 m, shot put and long jump. Canadian Nicole Forrester failed to qualify in the high jump - she couldn't make 1.93 m.

The Torch

Some of the little things I noticed - you can't bring food in so I went to the concession to get a snack. I waited in line patiently for about 10 minutes only to see that they weren't taking money, only bits of paper. I looked over to see a girl taking money and ripping bits off a paper bag and writing the amount she had taken. This script was then taken to the other line to exchange for food. I complained and was served right away. Seemed like they hadn't thought that one through! Also signage was bad all over. Not just in English; it seemed to be confusing to the Chinese too. When I came out of the subway, there were two volunteers holding up hand-made signs saying in English and Chinese, "Bird's Nest" and "Water Cube". The Olympic area is actually huge; it was about a 15 minute walk from the entrance from the subway to the stadium and of course it was raining.

So I am glad I went, but you know I think you see more on TV for the most part and it is drier!