I gave myself plenty of time to get to the stadium, as I have heard horror stories about getting to Olympic stadiums. I got lucky in catching a media shuttle with Mario Sategna, Texas' field events coach, and Will, one of the 24 hour fitness guys. Once we got to the Olympic Green, we had to walk for about 20 minutes to the security check. The line took over an hour. It was like Disneyland gone totally wrong. Personal space is a foreign idea in China.
Once we got into the Olympic Green, we still had a 20 minute walk to the stadium. I let the guys go in so that I could head to the warm up track. Because I'm not high enough on the totem pole, I didn't have access to the warm up track, so I had to talk to Shani through a fence. Shani was feeling good so I headed into the stadium to wait for things to start. The meet started at 7:00, and the TJ didn't go off until 9:40, so I had time to kill. I had tickets for the nosebleed seats, but there were plenty of seats all over the place. There were over 80000 in the stadium, but there were still places to finds empty seats. I made my way down to the 6th or 7th row right at the start of the 100 so that was nice. I watched the men run, talked with some folks from Australia who were there to watch there son in the 1500. After that I headed over to the TJ coaches box in the first row of the stands.
It was amazing how close we were, but it was almost too close. It's difficult to see the entire run and jump when you are that close, but I am certainly not complaining. It's better than getting emailed videos. Shani looked good on her warm up approaches and her short run jumps were good as well. We made a few adjustments and we had even planned to take one full jump before the meet started, something we usually don't do. That didn't go so well, but it wasn't terrible. She was the 17th of 18 jumpers, which is a large number of jumpers. There was another flight of 18, so this is the 36 best Triple Jumpers in the World. On her first jump, she was a little behind the board and the jump was not what we were hoping for, so we made a few changes and went with that. The second jump was a little better, but she was still out from where I would have liked her, so I told her to scoot up about 8 inches from where she was starting. On her final jump, she did everything that we wanted to do and had her best jump of the meet, but she was over by about an inch, so that was the end of the meet. As soon as she was done, I had a camera in my face, getting my reaction. To say I was bummed would be a major understatement. It wasn't the outcome that either of us were hoping for or expecting. Right now I am at a loss, so I won't dwell on it.
On the other hand, it was a night of highs and lows for the US team. All of the 100 runners are through to the semis. The men's shot putters didn't have a great night with a silver, 6th, and 12th. Erica, our other triple jumper did not advance. The highlight was Shalane Flanangan. She broke her own American record to finish 3rd in the 10,000. She is married to a good friend and former roommate of Johnny Rich, so I was incredibly excited for them. That is the first medal for an American in a distance race, man or woman, not including the Marathon, since 1992!!
That is all for now. I will try to update for the rest of my stay on what I am able to see and do. I wish I had better news to report, but sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. The countdown to my trip home has begun.
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