Almost 2 weeks after I watched the cycling on the streets of Beijing, I am now preparing to watch the men’s marathon, taking place on the last day of the Olympics. A last day that also includes the handover of the torch to the Mayor of London, so the closing ceremony should not be missed, even if it will not be anything like the opening ceremony.
A number of events have come and been, mostly observed through the BBC live update site online (and accessible by mobile phone, thankfully)! Chinese TV only actually has 3 channels providing live footage of the Olympics and they are always showing the Chinese (understandably) in weightlifting, volleyball, shooting, diving or some of the other sports the Chinese are good at. Though desperate to watch the Brits in some cycling, sailing, rowing or other events, we have been unable to.
We have sometimes wandered to bars in the evenings to watch some of the athletics, when it is on; however most bars are nothing like they would be for the World Cup or European Championship. The atmosphere in Beijing is well, not very atmospheric, without too many big screens anywhere, without any special activities (apart from the sports themselves) and without much to distinguish Olympic Beijing from usual Beijing; the Olympic signs and slogans have been up for years, though I admit that there are many more freshly cut and planted shrubs and trees that green everything up.
A week or so ago we went to the athletics stadium and marveled at the stadium and the entire Olympic complex in terms of size, greenery and, well, size. It is huge. A good 2-3km to walk from one end to the other (i.e. from the Bird’s nest to McDonalds), though with only 1 shop selling souvenirs (and a massive queue to get in), the Chinese have missed a trick there. Plenty of places to buy Coca-cola though; some lessons from the sponsors to the organizers on commercial sales might be needed. I am sure London will have plenty of souvenir shops!
Apart from the pleasure of walking around the complex and scoping out the generally unimpressive sponsors’ exhibition stands, we did, of course, watch some sports on the track. There is nothing too amazing to mention sports-wise, though it was definitely a fun experience and incredibly well organized; not just the security and the front-house organization, but the back-house and the sports themselves. Run to a tight schedule with teams of judges, volunteers, media and others all involved in preparing events, athletes, scores and more.
The atmosphere was half decent, but did get more exciting when Chinese athletes ran past our section of the stadium, cleared the pole vault or was being introduced over the tanoy system. For most of the other athletes there was not much cheering, though some long-jumpers tried. For most Chinese sports is not really something they participate in or even care much about, apart from for the nationalistic pride of their country doing well they would not even watch on TV (as we found in Xi’an, where most Chinese did not really care too much actually).
After a late night being impressed by Mr Bolt’s 100m jaunt, we got up early to watch the women’s marathon in 3 places (plenty of practice watching marathons from Dad running the London) and there were more spectators than I expected. There were a few polite claps sometimes, plenty of oohs and aahs at the 4 (yes, 4) helicopters flying overhead and some frustration from us when it started raining and a million umbrellas came out to block our view (temporarily, thankfully).
There was an attempt to get tickets to watch the track cycling that was unsuccessful, since the velodrome’s capacity is so limited –one hopes that in London they are redrawing the plans for the velodrome to allow 3million or more in to watch British success! Instead we hit some boxing for an hour or two where there were plenty of tickets available.
The highlight of another night at the athletics was being right by the front near the pole vault for the Russian woman’s new World Record which was pretty cool; decent atmosphere and all that. At the stadium we found the volunteers with the best job of the games (compared to those directing cars in car-parks or directing people through security barriers, or hauling hurdles all day long) –they had remote controlled cars (actually looking more like rocket ships) which they were driving all day long to and fro to collect the discus and bring it back to the throwers.
Another early morning start to watch the triathlon turned out to be well worth it, with the venue set in the countryside by a reservoir and mountains. Apart from the threat of the sun ruining everything (2 hours in 35 degree heat with no shade or sun-tan lotion at 11am) we really enjoyed watching the swimmers in front of us and then the runners and cyclists coming past as they did their laps. The added bonus of having a Brit in the top 4 for most of the race helped keep our spirits up, though he faded in the last lap of the run, unfortunately. With seats in front of the giant TV screen we watched the whole thing and had English commentary too (something missing from watching on regular TV)!
3 days in Xi’an tidying some things up in my penultimate week at Plan gave Dad more opportunities to try to be a tourist in China alone; though having me on the end of a mobile phone made his life somewhat easier! He did, though manage to get to, climb and get back from, a Mountain twice the size of the highest mountain in England in one piece (though having gone through two 70 pence backpacks!).
We’re now back in Beijing for the final weekend, and then everyone will start having to get used to a life after the Olympics; dread the thought!
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