London (Olympic Day 12)

It is now August 11th as I'm writing this. Sorry for getting behind on what is going on, but we are cramming as much into each day as possible and that doesn't leave enough time to get a semi-intelligible blog out each day. So today's blog is about what we did on Wednesday, August 8th: 

We don't have anything planned for this morning so I suggest that Beth walk over to the Globe theatre (it's current version constructed in the 1960's) and take the tour while I work on this blog and watch the Olympic coverage on TV. Sean, as usual, plays video games (he is working on completing all levels of Bubble Ball Pro).

Beth returns having very much enjoyed the tour of the Globe theatre. She found that a number of famous actors have performed there over the years such as Helen Mirren, John Guilgud and Vanessa Redgrave.

We have lunch at a Greek restaurant on the south bank of the Thames. This area is really vibrant. Lots of new buildings under construction and many people, especially young people either visiting or living here. It reminds me a lot of the area of Shanghai across the river from Pudong.

We have our only tickets for Athletics (the Olympic name for Track & Field) tonight so we decide that we will use our afternoon going to visit the Greenwich Observatory so that Sean can stand on both sides of the prime meridian that divides the east and west hemispheres at the same time (note: I did the same thing on my visit to London in 1968). We had originally wanted to get to Greenwich by boat down the Thames, but we don't have quite enough time for that. So we take the Jubilee line to Canary Wharf and switch to the DLR. We have made and will make this trip a number of times going to the ExCel arena, but today we go in the opposite direction.

We want to get off at a stop called Cutty Sark, but the train does not stop at that station because of the Equestrian events being held in Greenwich. It is the first indication that our plans are going to be derailed.

At the Greenwich station, we ask one of the volunteers how to get over to the Cutty Sark station. She says just follow the signs to the Olympic venues. We start to see signs for the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and follow them - until we run into an Olympic security fence. One of the helpful Olympic volunteers tells us that the Royal Observatory is closed until 2 days after the end of the Olympics. She asks us whether we want to see the prime meridian. We say that we do and she tells us that a pub down the street called the Horse and Plume has made arrangements to show where the prime meridian runs through the center of their establishment and allow visitors to get their pictures taken there. Somehow, this is not quite the same thing and decide to pass on the prime meridian. However, we do find a funny sign:

I'm sure that there are a number of shops that could claim similar between France and North and West Africa, but it makes us laugh. Further down the hill toward the water, we come across the Cutty Sark:

The Cutty Sark was the 747 cargo plane of it's age. It was designed to compete in the Tea trade with China because there were large bonuses paid to the first ship to bring the year's tea from China to London. Unfortunately, it was launched in 1869. The same year that the Suez canal was completed. The clipper ships like Cutty Sark were designed to sail in the strong trade winds around Africa, but the newly developed steam ships were able to take the shorter route through the canal. So, after a few years, Cutty Sark was transferred to hauling wool from Australia. It held the record between Sydney and London (73 days) for more than 10 years. But the days of the clipper ship were numbered and Cutty Sark ended up it's days being a training ship for sailors before being moved to permanent dry dock.

We thought about taking a Thames river ferry back to the hotel, but elect to walk under the Thames through a pedestrian tunnel built early in the 1900's. From North Greenwich, we get onto the DLR to go back to the hotel.

We are only at the hotel for a couple hours and then we are back on our way to Stratford for Athletics. We have a little time to kill so we visit the pavilion of one of the Olympic sponsors. This one is EDF, the official electricity supplier for the Games. There is a few minute movie about all of the needs for electricity in a modern life which we thought was pretty mindless. Then we are let into an area where kids can make electricity by cycling or jumping on the floor. While Sean is using up some of his endless energy to make electricity, I'm asked to trade pins with one of the volunteers at the pavilion. She offers one of the EDF sponsor pins and asks for one of the Wenlock pins. I thought that her choice was interesting. I've got a whole vest full of pins from as long ago as 1980 and she asks for one of the few pins that she could have just bought in the Superstore next door. Oh well, at least some pin trading is starting to take place.

We go back to the "food court" for dinner. Beth and Sean choose hot panini sandwiches while I had a pizza, but all of us ended up eating on the ground again because there was nowhere to sit.

Nearly everyone nearby seems to have Athletic tickets. As expected, the Jamaican fans are looking forward to seeing world record holder Usain Bolt in a semifinal of the men's 200m while most of the American's are looking forward to the women's 200m, but I'm looking forward to seeing two events of the first day of men's decathlon. It is true that American Ashton Eaton is likely to win, but these are the greatest athletes in the world and I never get tired of watching them.

Here is the view as we walk into the Olympic stadium:

I have heard that there is still an argument between which Premier League football (soccer) team will end up using this beautiful stadium, but it sounds like this has not been decided yet. At least someone is going to use it as the Bird's Nest stadium is falling into disrepair because of the high cost of keeping it in good shape.

Off to the right are two high jump pits for the Decathlon high jump. In front of us is the field for the qualification round for the Javelin. To our left is the long jump pit and it is clear that we are very close to the start of the 200m race.

The first event is the Decathlon high jump. The A group is jumping on the pit to the left while the B group is jumping closer to us so we concentrate on them. The better jumpers pass most of the lower heights to avoid getting tired out. All of these people can really get up in the air. For the first three heights, no one misses, then we start to see the differences. Ashton Eaton clears the bar at 2.02m  (6' 7.5") by a mile while the guys on the B pit are working hard to clear 1.96m (6' 5"). Here is a picture of Cuban Leonel Suarez clearing the bar at 2.08m (6' 10"):

This jump tied him with Ashton Eaton. Leonel was able to clear 2.11m (6' 11") as well to win this event, but Eaton remained comfortably ahead.

Watching Athletics is like watching a three-ring circus. While the high jump is finishing up, the Javelin competition starts. They are throwing from the other end of the stadium, so the pictures aren't great, but we do really like the method for getting the javelins back to the throwers:

We look for the guy driving these remote control minis, but he must be down at the other end of the stadium.

Both Decathlon/High Jump and Javelin stop temporarily for the three semifinal heats of the 110m High Hurdles. Things are looking good for the Americans as they have the  two athletes, Aries Merritt and Jason Richardson in the top three (the Cuban defending Olympic champion Dayron Robles is 2nd).

After the Decathlon/High Jump ends, the semifinals of the women's 1500m race takes place. These women are really quick. The top eight qualifiers are all under 4 minutes 3 seconds!

The women's Long Jump final is just starting, but while it is going, the event that most people are looking forward starts: the men's 200m semifinals. It is kind of unfair. In the first heat, Yohan Blake from Jamaica runs the 200m in 20.01 seconds to win the first semifinal heat and the fans are like "ho hum, when does Usain show up?". They didn't have to wait long. Usain runs in the 2nd heat. Here is the start:

Okay, he only ran a 20.17, but he was only running for 100m. After that he just jogged in. But the crowd went completely nuts. I felt a little sorry for the long jumpers because no one was paying much attention to them at that point.

Next, we had the finals of the women's 400m Hurdles. For a while, it looks like American Lashinda Demus will win, but Natalya Antyukh from Russia catches her in the end to take the gold medal in a personal best 52.70 seconds. There is a saying (that I don't agree with) that you don't win silver, you lose gold. Unfortunately, Demus seems to feel that way because she looks completely dejected as she slowly walks across the stadium. I hope that later in her life, she will look back and feel better about her achievement. 

Then it was time for the women's 200m final and the Americans in the crowd of 80,000 got loud. The American women are as strong in the women's sprints right now as the Jamaicans are in the men's sprints. All three Americans, Alison Felix, Carmalita Jeter and Sanya Richards-Ross have a chance to win. Not surprisingly, their closest competitors are the Jamaicans Shelly-Ann Frasier-Pryce and Veronica Campbell-Brown.   Everyone got a great start, but it is clear after 100m that Alison Felix is just too fat for the other athletes. Frasier-Pryce takes the silver medal and Jeter takes the bronze. After the race, each of the winners has been doing victory laps around the stadium and I get a pretty good picture of Alison:

The men come back for the 110m hurdles next. Unfortunately, the Cuban Robles blows his hamstring after the 3rd or 4th hurdle and Merritt cruises to the victory just ahead of fellow American Richardson.

While all of these races have gone on, the women's Long Jump has been taking place. Brittney Reese of the US has been ahead since perhaps the second round of jumps:

Her jump of 7.12m (23' 4") proves to be enough to win the gold medal. Elena Sokolova from Russia was in second for a long time as well, but Janay Deloach from the US makes the most of her next-to-last jump to take the bronze medal. That is 7 medals for the US in the last four events and is the reason why the USA is always near the top of the medal rankings. They are only good at a few events, but they are really, really good at those events.

The evening ends with the Decathlon/400m. It is extremely difficult for these athletes to be good at everything. High jump winner Suarez runs 49.04 seconds while Eaton runs 46.90 seconds to lead after the end of the first day: Eaton leads with 4661 points, Troy Hardee from the US is second with 4441 points and Damian Warner from Canada is 3rd with 4386 points.

Going home on the Underground, I give away a few more pins and have an interesting conversation with a couple from London who are complaining about how difficult it has been to get tickets. They are especially unhappy about the number of empty seats at each venue. I explain that the empty seats are reserved for the Olympic family (International Olympic Committee members, National Olympic Committee members and Olympic sponsors) who may or may not show up. While there have been previous attempts by Olympic organizers to free up these tickets for last minute sales, the IOC has always vetoed these attempts. Likewise, I explained that there is only one ticket agent for each country and the competition for the tickets allocated to each country is a function of the number of tickets allocated and the number of people wanting to buy them. Unfortunately, the United Kingdom probably does not get the highest number of tickets while they have a huge number of people who want them. It is probably easier for us to get tickets in the US for an overseas Olympics because the US is allocated a lot of tickets and relatively fewer are interested in traveling to the Games.

Steps for the day: 23,400 (a new Olympic record)