Rio 2016 - Day 10 (August 15)

Like our plane flight to Rio, our return trip is a red-eye. After trying (and failing) to find a morning Olympic event that we could go to, we opted for sightseeing. But this choice came with logistical challenges. Our half-day tour to the Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) statue picks us up at 8:15 am. This is sooner than we'd been getting out of the hotel on most days. But more importantly, we wouldn't be back before checkout time at the hotel. This meant that we'd have to check out before the tour departed which, in turn meant that we had to have our bags mostly packed the night before. Fortunately, we could pack and watch Olympic events at the same time so this worked out all right. The biggest challenge was removing all of the pins from my pin vest!

We grab a quick breakfast, say goodbye to our favorite waiter and manage to checkout and get our bags moved to a storage locker just in time. A big bus pulls up in front of the hotel, but the driver does not speak English and it takes some doing for us to figure out that this is not our bus. 8:15 comes and goes with no bus. Finally, around 8:35, another bus arrives - and we have the same problem. We finally get the help of one of the hotel clerks to discover that yes, this is our bus.

The bus, which is completely empty at this point, has an enclosed area in the front and an open roof in the back. We opt for the front because Beth and I were not sure we'd be able to hear the guide if we sat in the back. The bus sits there for some time and we finally figure out that we are waiting for our guide. She finally arrives and we are off. Well, off in a relative way. We spend about the next hour making pickups at hotels in the Ipanema and Copacabana neighborhoods. Street blockages become more common as we get near the beach volleyball venue and there are times when we wonder how the bus driver is going to get out of the narrow spots he is forced into to pick up passengers. Finally, the last pickup is done and we are on our way.

Our guide, whose English is not great, tells us that there are people like us who are on a half-day tour to Cristo Redentor and others who are on a full-day tour which will include lunch and an afternoon tour of Sugarloaf mountain. We would have loved the full-day tour, but we'd been informed by the travel company we are staying with that our pickup to go to the hotel will occur at 3:00 pm even though our flight does not depart until 9:30 pm. This is due to the possibility of bad traffic due to Olympic street closures.

Street closures are also affecting our tour. Our guide tells us that we'll spend much less time than usual in the central part of Rio than usual because of traffic. Since we're only in this to see Cristo Redentor, we are okay with this.

Our first stop is at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Sebastian. This is a modern Catholic cathedral that opened in 1976. Brazil has the highest population of Catholics in the world so the building of this church was a very big deal. The outside:

is apparently designed to look like a Mayan pyramid although why they chose to honor people who lived far, far from Rio is beyond us. This was also the prevailing attitude of Brazilians in the 1960's when the church was under construction. They did not like the looks of it at all. However, I imagine that this changed rapidly one it opened. Inside the cathedral is spectacular:

There are four of these 200+ foot tall stained glass windows more or less pointed toward the four points of a compass. It is said that this cathedral can hold nearly 20,000 people if you count standing room. At the top of the cathedral, high above the altar, where the four stained glass windows come together, is a white cross. Notice the kind of honeycomb in the walls. Whether it was designed for this purpose or not, these walls absorb sound so that it is really quiet inside despite a good number of tourists coming and going. Very impressive!

Our second stop is at what the Brazilians call the Arcos da Lapa (Lapa Arches):

Rio was originally built on a swamp so it was difficult to get fresh water into the city center. They tried canals, but ran into a variety of problems so eventually settled on aqueducts. This one is called the Carioca (what inhabitants of Rio call themselves) Aqueduct and was built in 1750. Eventually, pipelines were built to carry water and the aqueduct was re-purposed as the track for the Santa Teresa bonde (tramway). The tramway opened in 1896 to transport people from the inner city to the uphill neighborhood of Santa Teresa. The Lapa district where this picture was taken used to be Rio's red-light district. It is now known for it's vibrant nightlife and our guide points out several nightclubs known for their music and good restaurants. She also recommends that anyone visiting here come by taxi and leave by taxi as walking around after dark is not safe.

Then we are off to Cosme Velho neighborhood which is home to the Estação de Ferro do Corcovado, the cog railroad which will take us up Corcovado mountain to the Cristo Redentor statue. Cog railroads are commonly used to take passengers up mountains where the average grade is greater than the maximum 7-10% grades used by standard trains. The trains are equipped with one or more cog wheels which fit into teeth on the rack rail so that the train can't slide backwards. Since this is the number one tourist destination in Rio, they no longer sell tickets at the station. You have to buy them as part of a tour or online. When we arrive, there is already a good-sized line waiting for the next train. But it appears that these folks are waiting for the next train while ours will be the one after that. There are four trains operating on this line, each with two cars. Each train can hold 173 people so our tour fits comfortably in one car. Each train has an car pointed uphill and a car pointed downhill. I've ridden on cog railroads up Mt. Washington in New Hampshire and up Pike's Peak in Colorado and know I hate going up the hill backwards so I'm happy when our group is put in the uphill facing car. With tourist demand from the Olympics, the operators spend a fair amount of time making sure that every last seat is full.

Cristo Redentor is located on top of the 700 m (2,300 ft) Corcovado mountain in the middle of the Parque Nacional da Tijuca - the world's largest urban park. This 39 square km preserve is the last remaining piece of the Atlantic rainforest that used to surround Rio. It is actually an advertisement for what can be done in the way of habitat restoration. In the 1800's most of the Parque had been clear-cut for coffee and sugar plantations. The government became worried about erosion and the preservation of Rio's water supply, so they closed the plantations and started replanting native species. Once there was enough habitat they started importing native mammals like coatis, capybara and Capuchin monkeys, but a lot of other animals moved in on their own. There are also a wide variety of birds like toucans and canaries. Here is a view of the Parque from the train with the Cristo Redentor statue in the distance:

We hear a lot of birds, but nothing comes close enough to the train to see. The ride up takes about 20 minutes and then we are let out at the station so distance below the statue. There are stairs up from the station, but we opt for the elevator.

The Cristo Redentor statue was voted by UNESCO as one of the 7 wonders of the modern world. It is the world's largest art deco statue standing 125' tall and weighting 1145 tons. It was designed by french sculptor Paul Landowski and built by Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa. Here is a picture:

For a few minutes, I couldn't figure out why it was considered an art deco statue. Then I walked up close to it and noticed that the outside is covered with something like 60,000 small pieces of soapstone. Landowski is said to have come up with this idea because he thought that concrete (which makes up the interior of the statue) was too crude and rough. This picture makes it look like I was the only one up there, but it was really crowded. This picture gives you a better idea of what it was like:

Apparently taking pictures superimposing yourself on Christ is a thing - such a thing in fact that they supply padding for the photographers to lay on while taking their pictures! There are a lot more than the 346/hr that can come up on the railroad. That is because you can also drive, take a taxi or minivan up to the parking lot located slightly below the train station. From there, you can get into an official van for the ride to the top. This is the way that most people get up here because it is faster than the train. You can also hike up, but that is a much bigger undertaking. 

While the statue itself is impressive, the view from the statue is amazing. I spend a considerable amount of time taking pictures that I hope to convert into a panoramic shot. It is pretty hazy, especially toward downtown Rio so I concentrate on the beach areas where the sky is a little clearer. Here is my best attempt:

The body of water toward the middle of the picture is the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon where the rowing venue is located. The thin strip of land above it is the Ipanema neighborhood where we have been staying. To the left of Ipanema is Copacabana beach. Central Rio is off the screen to the left and the Barra Olympic Park is off the screen to the right.

With so many people wanting to see this view, each ticket comes with a scheduled departure from the summit. I figure that Beth can manage to get back down to the train station at the right time, but Sean tends to lose track of time so I spend a few minutes trying to find him. As it turns out, Sean has spent most of his time on the summit trying to find the point where the picture for the GeoGuessr online game were taken. GeoGuessr, which by-the-way is really fun, shows you a picture and you have to figure out exactly where on the globe you are located. You can move around looking for clues (street signs, flags, famous locations, etc) and there are timed and untimed versions, but the closer you are to the original picture site you place you guess, the higher your score. He knows that the picture was taken from the backside and below the statue, but despite climbing up and down numerous flights of stairs looking for the exact spot, he can't quite find it. Finally, I have to persuade him that it is time to head to the waiting area to go back down the hill.

The waiting area for the train is off to the side from where visitors come up and the enclosed area makes it easier for the tour guides to figure out where all their people at. This gets a little stressful for them because there are always a few people that aren't punctual. After rushing around looking for a handful of people, we are all finally ready just about the time that the train is ready to board. The trip back down seemed a lot faster, but this is maybe because we've seen it all before. One thing that I did not see were the murals on the walls near the train station. Here is one of them:

They look pretty new so maybe these were added for the Olympics. In any case, they look nice. A couple Americans in our group decide that they are going to bail out of the tour at this point and it takes them a couple of minutes before our guide understands what they want to do. While we're standing around, I notice a lot of the locals are looking at my pins. I had a similar situation in Beijing where I nearly set off a riot by trading a pin. So this time, I decide to pass on the opportunity to give away a few more of my handouts. Then it is back on the bus toward the hotel.

The people on the full-day tour are heading to Copacabana for lunch where we will drop them and then continue to our hotels. On the way, we can see the Sugerloaf mountain off to the side:

Sugerloaf is a 396 m (1299') granite monolith similar to those found in Yosemite Valley in California and Guilin in China. It is located at the mouth of Guanabara Bay that is the entry-point to Rio from the sea. Basically, these mountains are just a big chunk of hard rock produced long ago by a volcano and originally surrounded by much softer rock. Over time, the soft rock erodes away leaving these monoliths. There are many of them in this area and often the favelas are built up the sides of them. This one is called Sugerloaf because it looks like the traditional cone shape of concentrated, refined loaf sugar produced during the height of the sugarcane trade in Brazil during the 16th century. You can barely see in this picture that there is a gondola that starts from off the screen to the right, has a mid-station on the hill on the right of the picture and then goes up to the top of Sugarloaf mountain. We really wanted to do this tour, but we'll have to save it for another trip.

After about 30 minutes, our bus runs into traffic so I figure that we must be getting close to Copacabana. Sure enough, we turn a corner and see this:

This is the backside of the beach volleyball venue. Like many of the Rio venues, this one is temporary and will disappear soon after the Olympics and Paralympics ends. While I'm sure that no one in Rio really wanted a permanent venue on their most famous beach, it is a shame that there will be so little legacy from these Olympics other than the massive debt. It used to be common for the Olympics to leave some sporting infrastructure for future generations. An example would be the bobsled run and speed-skating oval in Salt Lake City that are still operating today. Los Angeles is still using the Coliseum 80+ years after it was built for the 1932 Summer Olympics. But the high cost of the Olympics and crashing Brazilian economy has made this impossible.

Since we were the first people on the bus, we were also the last people off the bus. But that still gave us enough time to get some lunch before our shuttle to the airport. We were still craving pizza after our failed attempt at the sucos place yesterday and were able to find an open-air place near General Osório station that looked good. It was right next to a Japanese handroll place and we debated going there instead, but finally settled on pizza. It was excellent! Then it was back to the hotel. We still had about 90 minutes before we were picked up so we occupied a couple of tables in the hotel in front of their big-screen TV and watched the Olympics while I worked on pins on my laptop. There were a couple of Nigerians who had "control" of the TV and they wanted to watch basketball which was okay with us. In no time at all, it was time to go outside and wait for our shuttle. When it arrived, there were two people. The first was an employee of the travel company we were with and the second was the driver. The employee's job was to make sure that we got on the shuttle but he would not be going with us. He just wanted to make sure that we understood what was happening because the driver spoke only a couple of words of English.

We had been led to believe that there would be massive traffic on the way to the airport, but once we got through the mess near Copacabana, we had smooth sailing all the way to the airport. Of course, this meant that we had something like 5 hours to kill before our flight boarded. One hour of that was wasted just waiting to check our bags. We had hoped that we would spend the rest of our time in our favorite game of seeing whether we could spend all of our foreign currency before getting on the flight - and because we had used credit cards so often, we had a lot of foreign currency to spend. There did not seem to be any stores in the check-in area so we had to hope that there was a duty-free area on the way to the gate.

We knew that the boarding gate was a long way from the security check-point so there was a lot of area that could have been used for stores. There was a big duty-free area, but it mostly had alcohol, perfume and chocolate. There was a small Olympic store, but it had mostly youth-sized shirts and no pins at all - or at least none after the offerings had been picked over by the Olympic tourists that had already departed Rio. It was getting toward dinner time so we looked for a place to eat. There is a submarine sandwich place and a coffee shop near the duty-free area, but each has a giant line so we move toward the gate.

After a really long walk, we finally made it to the gate area. The good news is that our plane was there. The bad news is that they wouldn't be boarding for another 2.5 hours. There were a couple of shops selling snacky-type food near the gate and Beth and Sean agree to go stand in the long line if I will sit and watch all of the bags. They had not been gone for more than a couple minutes before I was approached by an American who was eyeing the pins on my hat (I'd packed my pin vest). He wanted to know where I'd traded my pins and commented that "I had a few good ones". I've seen this act before so I tried to keep my answers as short and non-committal as possible. These smarmy guys try to strike up conversations mostly with athletes, but  occasionally with other collectors in the hope of getting free pins. After a couple minutes, he gives up and walks away - directly toward a group of Korean athletes.

There are a lot of athletes here even though the Olympics still has 6 days to go. This is because each National Olympic Committee has to pay rent to the Rio organizing committee for every day that an athlete is in the Olympic village. So in most cases, as soon as your event is done, off you go. I don't want to be like that American pin collector so I leave the athletes alone even though I do have stuff to trade and instead try to figure out how the athletes are going home. There are flights leaving for Amsterdam, Madrid and London somewhat before our flight. The Chinese are apparently going home through Amsterdam while the Koreans appear to be on our flight. The Chinese seem to have the better idea. Rio to Beijing through Amsterdam is 10,816 miles while Rio to Seoul via San Francisco is 12,270 miles. Maybe the Koreans have United frequent flier miles, but more likely, they are connecting to a Korean Air flight in either Houston or San Francisco.

Beth and Sean finally come back with some food - and a lot of complaints about how slow the food preparation staff is. We eat and then Beth and Sean head off to try to spend some of our foreign currency. About a hour later, they come back with a bag of stuff - mostly t-shirts, but also a bottle of Brazilian rum and a couple neck pillows. We still have plenty of time and money so I go back to one of the two satellite Olympic stores and buy a couple more t-shirts and a neck pillow (which appears to have been produced for the 2014 World Cup of soccer rather than the Olympics).

Then it is finally time to line up to board. Many of the American athletes are flying in business class so we get to see them go past. We think a young woman near us is Madison Kocian, who picked up a team gold medal in gymnastics and a silver in the uneven bars. We are also surprised to see Elana Meyers Taylor, who won a silver medal in women's bobsled at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. After some digging, I discover that Elana also has two caps playing for the US rugby 7s team so it is likely that she was in Rio watching the US team compete.

As usual, we are near the back of the bus. I notice that the Korean women's fencing team has the row directly behind us, but I again pass on the urge to try some pin trading. The flight itself was uneventful. We discover that there is a reason that these neck pillows are still available nearly two years later - they are too thick and force your neck into an uncomfortable position! I'm finally able to get some sleep after I stick it under my seat.

We arrive in Houston in the early morning and have to clear customs before we can get on our flight to San Jose. Sean's bag and mine arrive quite rapidly, but we wait a long time for Beth's bag so by the time that we get to the TSA checkpoint, almost everyone from our flight is gone. The US Olympic team members had been cleared through customs separately, but this must have taken some time because they are still going through the TSA screen when we arrive. I put my backpack through the metal detector and am not surprised when one of the agents comes over and says that they'll have to open my bag. I know that they are seeing my Olympic pin bag so I open that up. Satisfied, they let me go.

I am sitting on a bench putting my shoes and belt back on when all of the TSA agents run over to one of the metal detectors. Does someone have a gun or a bomb? It takes a minute to realize that I should have said medal detector because this is apparently what happens when a person tries to put their newly won medal (gold in this case) through the metal detector. I figure out later that this young woman is Ginny Thrasher, who actually won Team USA's first gold medal in Rio in the 10 m air rifle. Ms. Thrasher is more than happy to have her picture taken with any or all of the TSA agents.

While we are standing there watching, a person hands me this pin:

I look up and see four-time Olympic gold medalist and 14 time grand-slam champion Serena Williams standing there. Serena is probably disappointed with her performance in Rio where she and her sister Venus lost in doubles tennis in the first round and then she lost in the 3rd round of women's singles. But I will always remember that she gave me this pin. What a great ending to our trip to Rio!

I hope that you have enjoyed this blog - even given how long it took to complete it. Please join us again in 2018 when we (hopefully) attend the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang Korea.

Steps for the day - 11,708
Steps for the trip - 123,675

Rio 2016 - Day 9 (August 14)

It is hard to believe, but today is our last Olympic event before we head home - singles badminton at RioCentro Pavilion 4. But our event doesn't start until 3:30 PM, so we have some time to kill. Beth and Sean watch some of the Olympic highlights on TV - I think we have seen Brazilian Judoka Rafaela Silva win the gold medal a zillion times on TV even though it happened less than a week ago. But this is not so different than when we saw the Japanese men's ski jumping team win the gold medal in Nagano. TV loves to show the hometown heroes. The US wins so many medals that this doesn't happen as much - except for Michael Phelps or women's gymnastics, but in some smaller countries, they may only have one Olympic champion. I'll come back to this theme later on. But now it is time for lunch.

For more than a week, we've been walking past a business on our way to General Osório station called Beach Sucos and it is always packed with people. It appears to have something to do with food and, based on the crowds, must be really good. The other day, we discovered that they have another branch of this chain near the Metro station that takes us to Barra Olympic Park or RioCentro so we decide to stop there on our way to RioCentro.

We arrive and are directed toward a table crushed into the back of the store. It's so cozy that I feel like I'm going to collide with someone at the next table if I inhale. We ask if they have English menus, but they are either being used by other patrons or they don't have any. Usually we can get the gist of the Portuguese menu - most European languages are similar enough, but we are having problems today. No worries, Google Translate to the rescue! I've been using Google Translate for several years now to help send letters to NOCs asking about their pins in something approaching their native languages. I understand that the quality of the translation probably comes out sounding like "How you go?", but the general idea is better than nothing. I type in sucos and find that it is a drink combining water and fruit juice. Sounds good, but isn't saying anything about the food. Then I notice the little camera icon at the top of the Google Translate page and press it. Ooh! All I have to do is point the camera at the menu and line up the line on the menu with the screen and it will substitute the translation for the original words. How cool is this?! I can't wait to try this in two years in PyeongChang South Korea (hint: next Winter Olympics!) where there is no way that we are going to be able to figure out the menus. Of course, this works if the line on the menu says pizza with mushrooms and green peppers (pizza com cogumelos e pimentas verdes), but doesn't work so well if the line says pizza Fred (believe it or not, Fred is a star player on the Brazilian national soccer team).

With this knowledge in hand, we order three pizzas. About 20 minutes later and still no pizzas, we try to find our waitress to see what is the holdup, but she is nowhere to be found. We wait a few more minutes and then walk up to the counter. They look around for someone that speaks English. One waitress is finally found and when we ask where is our food, she tells us that the pizzas that Beth and Sean ordered are not available. They each pick another (after finding out that several more are not available) and then come back to the table. Finally, our waitress arrives with our drinks and pizzas - and we discover that one pizza is designed to feed at least a small neighborhood - and we've ordered 3 of them! To make matters worse, this stuff is terrible. Beth's onion and green pepper pizza looks more like a cheese pizza with a couple of onion and pepper accent pieces. The crust is thick, under-cooked and tasteless. But at least the drinks are good! We each eat a couple slices to keep our strength up and then look for our waitress to get the bill. We wait a few minutes and then notice that most people are not waiting for their waitresses, but are forming a line at the counter to pay. I do the same while Beth and Sean wait outside. Once through that ordeal, we walk over to the Metro station and wonder how these places could be so popular when the service and food is so bad. We finally decide that the individual shops must be under different management.

The Metro is pretty busy and I get a chance to give away a few more pins on the train and then again on the bus. The bus drops us outside the Olympic Park and we are happy to burn off some of our lunch on the 15 minute walk to Rio Centro. We generally try to walk as fast as possible because our path follows what might be called either a stream or an open air sewer depending on which way the wind is blowing. Fortunately, we are upwind today because we want to check in on a protest that has been going on since our first day in Rio. On the other side of the "stream" are some brand new one story homes with a wall around the whole community. We guess that given the close proximity to the Olympic Park that this area is for people who are working in the Park. On our first visit to RioCentro, there was a huge sign spray painted on the wall that Google Translate translated as "the Olympics are paid for on the backs of indigenous people". This sign had been painted over on our second visit and replaced by a smaller one pointed away from our walkway that said something like "money for the people, not for the Olympics". Today, that sign had also been painted over, but either the paint was wet or they used a slightly different color because there was now a big rectangle on the site of the second sign - and sure enough another 50 yards past the site of the second sign was a third one that I couldn't read. There was also a car with a security person there that hadn't been there before.

Since we are now "old pros", we ignore the friendly volunteers trying to get people into the correct lines and get ourselves into the security line. Today we are in RioCentro 4. So far, we've been in Pavilion 2 for weightlifting and Pavilion 3 for table tennis. We know that Pavilion 6 is used for boxing, but it isn't clear whether any other sports are located here. As usual, our tickets grant us access to a particular section, but there are no reserved seats in the section. We usually sit in the front row so that I can take pictures, but the first two rows are roped off today - apparently for photographers. We take seats in about row 10 so that I can sit on the aisle and get a more or less unobstructed view of the center court.

There are a lot of people here today:

which tells us that a Brazilian is going to be playing, but that is not the case in the first three matches. To our left on court 3 are men's world #5 and Olympic 5th seed Jan Jorgensen of Denmark and world #39 Brice Leverdez of France. Both men won their first match so the winner of this match will advance to the knock-out round. To our right on center court 1 are women's world #2 and Olympic 2nd seeded Wang Yihan of China and world #28 Karin Schnaase of Germany. Wang was the silver medalist in London. So far, both women are undefeated (okay, they are both 1-0!) so this match is also for the right to advance to the knock-out round. Far to our right on court 2 are men's world #12 and Olympic 10th seeded Hu Yun of Hong Kong and world #34 Pablo Abian from Spain. Again, both of these men won their first match and the winner will advance to the knock-out round.

On court 3:

Jorgensen in the forecourt is having no problem with Leverdez winning the first set 21-11. Leverdez plays a little better in the second set, but still ends up losing 21-16 as Jorgensen moves on to the knock-out round. While I was taking pictures of this match, one of the ushers noticed my camera and came over. I was afraid that I had violated some restriction on using a lens over a certain length, but what he wanted to tell me was that it would be okay if I sat in the front row to take pictures! I give him my best obrigado (thank you) and tell him that I will move after these three matches. Over on court 3, Wang has her power game going:

Badminton is a quite strange sport. The initial speed of a shot like this overhead from Wang can reach nearly 300 km/hr (170 mph), but the shuttlecock rapidly slows down so it is challenging to figure out where it is going to end up given it's initial direction and speed. Wang chases Schnaase all over the court by hitting first to one side then the other and cruises to a straight set victory 21-11, 21-16. It was really hard to see what was going on over on court 2, but this match was very close. Hu also pulled out a straight set victory 21-18, 21-19, but it was close the whole way.

Unlike the first set of three matches where the winner would be moving on to the knock-out stage, the second match on court 1 features two athletes who lost their first match and will not be moving on to the knock-out round. They are men's world #14, Olympic 12th seed and 7 time German national champion Mark Zweibler and the guy the crowd is here to see: world's #64 Ygor Coelho de Oliveira from Brazil.

Zweibler is 32 years old. De Olivera is 19 years old and has a great story. Ygor grew up in the Rio favela of Chacrinha. To protect his family and neighborhood from gangs, Ygor's father Sebastiaõ built a badminton academy in what had previously been a swamp despite the fact that he had never played the sport. He found that kids loved the sport, but got blasted in tournaments because of their poor physical condition. He couldn't get the kids interested in long amounts of jump roping that most badminton athletes use to generate the foot and hand speed necessary to excel. Then he had an idea - why not use samba, something that the kids already loved? Soon after, kids started winning championships. Even better, Sebastiaõ would not let any child play who did not keep up their grades. Their lives became get up, go to school, go to badminton, go to sleep, effectively keeping them out of the clutches of the gangs. In addition to Ygor, the school boasts a second Olympian, female singles badminton athlete Lohayany Vicente. If interested, you can see more about Sebastiaõ and his academy in the documentary called "Bad and the Birdieman". 

In the match, Ygor's fans boo Zweibler incessantly. But with nothing on the line, he seems okay with it. It appears more like "okay, let's see what this kid can do". Ygor does show flashes of brilliance, but he is no match for Zweibler and loses 21-12, 21-12. After the match he embraces Zweibler and in Brazilian soccer tradition asks to trade uniforms. Zweibler smiles and agrees then steps out of the way so that Ygor can accept one last cheer from his fans:

I think that we may see Igor again in Tokyo!

Over on court 2, the second match is between female world #3 and Olympic 3rd seed Li Xuerui from China and world #35 Iris Wang from the US. Both women had already won two matches, but unfortunately for Iris, there are four women in her bracket instead of the usual three. Iris shows the speed necessary to compete with the best in the world and turns herself inside out on some of her returns:

but in the end, Li is just too much for her and wins in straight sets 21-16, 21-12.

On court 3, we have men's world #53 Adrian Dziolko from Poland and world #95 Niluka Karunaratne from Sri Lanka. Both had already lost to men's Olympic#2 seed Chen Long from China so this match was just for fun. But that doesn't stop them from producing the best match of the session. Both guys are extremely quick so there is a lot of back and forth at the net:

as well as plenty of power shots like this:

Karunaratne wins the first set 21-19, but Dziolko leads through most of the second set and looks poised to take the second set when the score reaches 19-17. But Karunaratne fights back and ties the score at 20-20 to send the match into overtime. There are some massive rallies, but Karunaratne's ability to cover the court is just a little bit better and ends up winning in straight sets 21-19 and 24-22. We really enjoyed this match and the sportsmanship after it was over:

The last match of the day is between Olympic 13th seed and female world #17 Yeon Jue Bae from Korea against world #52 Ozge Bayrak from Turkey:

Both had won their opening match so this was for a place in the knock-out round. However, it was really no contest as Bae dominated this match in winning 21-11, 21-7 in about 30 minutes. In fact, this match was so fast that the Karunaratne-Dziolko match was still going when this match finished even though thee men had already completed their first set before Bae and Bayrak started.

While there is still a heavy Chinese influence in badminton, it is great to see so many athletes from different countries competing at a high level. China eventually wins gold medals in men's singles and doubles and a bronze in mixed doubles, but Malaysia wins three silver medals, Japan wins a gold and bronze, Denmark wins a silver and a bronze, Indonesia and Spain win gold medals, India wins a silver and Korea and Great Britain win a bronze.

After the match, Beth needs to stop at the restroom so I spend a few minutes trading pins. Interest is definitely picking up - just in time for us to go home. We're a little sad that this will be our last event in Rio, but we've got some sightseeing planned for tomorrow before flying home to get ready to install Sean in college next weekend.

Steps for the day - 9,549

Rio 2016 - Day 8 (August 13)

Today we are off to men's basketball at the Barra Olympic Park. It is amazing to realize that this will be our last visit to the park. But as the game does not start until 7 pm we've got plenty of time to do something else - like eat. We've been trying to make reservations at one of the better restaurants in Ipenema called Zazá Bistrô Tropical. We have been completely unsuccessful getting a table in the evening (which probably means it is as good as we think it is), but were able to get one for lunch. The restaurant is about 3 blocks from our hotel and about a block from the beach. It looks quite unusual from the outside:

Inside is crammed with many more tables that one would imagine fitting inside this building. We go up a narrow (one way traffic only!) circular stairway to a dining room on the second floor. It looks like this:

(pictures gratefully taken from Zaza's website: Zaza bistro tropical) I am at a loss to describe the style of this place. It is a little hard to see, but we're seated at low tables on a floor that looks like long AstroTurf trying to mimic a lawn. There are all of these decorations on the walls and hanging from the ceiling and quotes in French on some of the walls. Let's call this style French Hippie!

We start with an appetizer of what looks like potato chips made out of taro, manioc and casaba. For the main course, Sean and I have grilled white fish over roasted palm hearts, banana puree and lemon curry velouté (that's a traditional french sauce for the non-foodies [like me!] in the audience). Beth has organic chicken curry with vegetables, mushrooms, lemon grass, and bananas with ginger flavored coconut milk. Sean passes on another chance for alcohol and orders a sort of fruit version of a tequila sunrise with layers of passion fruit, mango and orange juices. Sean must be reading my mind (or we are way more similar than I thought) because he also orders the same desert as I do: devil's cake souffle with Sicilian lemon sorbet and orange raspberries. Beth has a banana brûlée. It is all awesome! The only trouble Beth and I have are trying to stand up afterwards without stepping on people at the nearby tables.

We decide that since we have time to kill, we might as well kill it at the Olympic park rather than sitting in our hotel room. We pick up our backpacks and then head off to the Metro. This is the first time we've taken this trip in mid-afternoon and the trains are quite full - most seem to be coming from downtown or the Beach Volleyball venue. There does seem to be more interest in my pins and I do give away a few, but no one has anything to trade. At the end of the Metro line, we switch to a bus for the rest of the ride to the Olympic part. There is an older couple from the US (Virginia) in the seats in front of ours. They take a look at the pins and ask how many Olympics we've been to and we give them the whole story. Then we ask what brings them to Rio. They tell us that their son, Craig Parnam, is the head coach of the US women's hockey (field) team. They are really excited because the US team is 3-0 going into their match with world #2 ranked Great Britain this evening. They have already knocked off world #3 ranked Argentina and world #4 ranked Australia in this tournament. This is a huge turnaround for US team that finished 8th in Beijing and 12th in London so they are justifiably proud of their son and the job that he has done. They hand us a couple of US field hockey federation pins as we are getting off the bus and we wish them good luck in tonight's match.

After wandering around for a few minutes, we decide to visit the Samsung hospitality center - mostly because of the sign showing that they have a series of Olympic sport pins designed to look like cellphones that they are giving away. Free pins - count me in! After a fairly short wait in line, we go in and find that in order to get the pins, we have to sit through sales pitches on all of the various Samsung products. Bummer! No pin is worth that. However, there is an area that is demonstrating the virtual reality goggles that work with Samsung phones. The area is a sort of stadium with the kind of chairs that you would find on a roller coaster. They have a number of perky young sales people that explain in various languages how to buckle yourselves into the chairs (because they move!) and how to put on the goggles. These goggles don't fit easily over our glasses so it takes some doing to adjust the focus so that we can see. There are two videos. The first puts you in the place of athletes competing in Olympic events like trampoline, platform diving, boxing and fencing. I'm not sure I would say that it is the same as being there, but I can definitely see the potential. The second video was a ride on one of Sean and Beth's favorite roller coasters at Magic Mountain in Southern California called Tatsu. This is one of those coasters where your seat is held from above and there is nothing under your feet, and that rotates forward (so you are lying on your belly during the ride). I didn't feel the same fear of heights that I get on the real deal, but otherwise, the sense of motion that you get during turns and loops feels quite authentic. It must have gone over well with Beth and Sean because they both look like they are ready to do it again. Fortunately for me, there is a long line waiting so we have to leave.

The Olympic superstore is right next door so we hop into that line to go get some more Olympic swag. The line is a lot longer than the last time so I get a chance to play one of my favorite queue games. We keep passing the same people over and over as the line loops back and forth and I am on the lookout for people, but especially little kids, who are checking out my pins. If they are still paying attention the second time we pass, I hand them a pin. I'm able to do this 3 or 4 times before we finally get into the store. Sean and Beth head off to get shirts and I go over to look at the pins. This time I am concentrating on sport pins, preferably with mascots because I know that I'll be able to easily trade them at future Olympics. But I'm surprised at how many designs are already out-of-stock halfway through the Olympics. I guess that means that the Brazilians are starting to get interested in pins. Getting out of the store takes nearly as long as getting in and I have plenty of time to study what sorts of things people are buying - Olympic drink glasses, flip-flops and giant mascot plushies all seem to be popular as do Team Brazil shirts. I can only imagine how many thousands of dollars are being rung up every minute! Certainly more than all of the residents of a single favela make in a year. While some of this money does go to the Rio Olympic organizing committee to partially offset their spending, the majority of it goes right back to the multinational Olympic sponsors. This will be one of the tragedies of these Games - how much money was spent by Brazil to organize the Olympics that had no benefit at all for the majority of Brazilians. This is really a challenge for the whole Olympic movement. The costs to host the games are now so high that fewer and fewer cities or countries are willing to bid. Unless changes are made to reign in costs, it may come down to the same 3 or 4 cities in wealthy countries hosting the games over and over again. That would be a shame.

We still have another couple hours or so to kill before the gates open for our game at the Carioca 1 arena so we wander around and look at some of the other venues. Here is the swimming stadium:

This stadium is at least one attempt to keep costs down. After the games, it will be completely disassembled. It would have been nice for an Olympic legacy to keep the pool and just get rid of the spectator seating, but I don't think that this is going to happen.

There is a live site showing Olympic events fairly close to Carioca 1 so we head over to see what is showing. There is a big crowd watching, of all things, men's team handball. Then we realize that this is because the match is between Egypt and Brazil. While Egypt was up 4 goals in the first half, most of the game has been a real nail-biter. When Egypt's Ahmed Elahmar scores to make it 27-25 Egypt with 2:41 left, things are looking bad for the Brazilians. However, Joao Da Silva scores with 2:01 left and the crowd erupts. The Brazilians steal the ball from Egypt and go in on a fast break, but the Egyptian goal keeper makes the save. The Egyptians can't retrieve the rebound and Haniel Langaro scores for Brazil to tie the score at 27-27 with 1:18 left. Egypt takes a timeout to regroup and once play resumes, they work the ball to Elahmar for a shot with 16 seconds left. Brazilian goalie Maik Dos Santos makes a great save and it sounds in the Olympic park like we are at the game, there were that many people yelling. Brazil calls time out to discuss strategy, but their last shot was blocked and the game ends in a tie. For the Brazilians, a tie is almost as good as a win because their record of 2-1-1 will probably be good enough to qualify for the medal round even if they lose to Sweden in their last match in preliminary play.

By the time we get over to Carioca 1, there is already a big crowd outside. There are no signs outside so it takes us a while to figure out where the security line starts. It is a long line, but it moves pretty quickly. Since it is dinner time, we're eating stadium food again. Sean decides what he wants and gets into one food line while Beth and I go looking for something else. When we all find our seats, we notice that there are a lot of Lithuanian fans here for their game against Spain:

We've been aware of how fanatical Lithuanian basketball fans are for more than 20 years since Golden State Warrior star Sarunas Marciulionis (recently inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame) was the one of the top players for Lithuania and Warriors assistant coach Donn Nelson was the Lithuanian team coach. Somewhere, I still have a Lithuania Grateful Dead fundraising t-shirt from that time. The Lithuanian fans are fired up because they are 3-0 going into this match with wins against Brazil, Nigeria and Argentina. Spain, who were thought to be a medal contender with their 4 NBA players, are in a much different situation. They lost their first two games by a total of 3 points to Croatia and Brazil before beating Nigeria. They have to win this game to have a shot at the medal round.

It is clear from the opening tip that Spain had received the message loud and clear. Two three-point field goals and two layups for Spain combined with 1 for 5 shooting and two turnovers for Lithuania gave Spain a 10-2 lead with only three and a half minutes gone. Lithuania tried to take advantage of their small height advantage by forcing the ball inside, but have real problems getting good looks due to the defense from Spanish center and NBA player, 2.15 m (7'1") Pau Gasol:

Not getting anywhere inside, Lithuania started taking almost nothing by three point shots:

like this one from "small" forward (at 2.04 m (6'8")) Mindaugas Kuzminskas. This strategy didn't work very well either as they made only one of their first four tries and Lithuania found itself down 26-11 at the end of the first period. Things didn't get much better in the second period when Lithuania missed six of eight three pointers. On the other end, it seemed like Spain was shooting mostly layups, but managed to only tack on another four points to their lead; 48-29 at the half.

With the game still looking likely to become a blow-out, I pay more attention to the halftime entertainment than usual. First we have a person in a plastic mascot suit:

This is Vinicius and is supposed to be a cross between a bunch of Brazilian animals. The name comes from Brazilian musician Vinicius de Moraes and is supposed to represent the diversity of the Brazilian people and culture, as well as its exuberant nature (or so says the Rio Olympic website). We've seen a lot of different mascots over the years ranging from the more or less real animals (arctic hare, snow leopard and bear) from Sochi to the what-the-heck is this thing Izzy from Atlanta. I tend to prefer the symbolic mascots so I'm quite happy with Vinicius. But what I really want to know right now is how does the person in the suit keep from roasting in this costume? There is no refrigeration unit and they have to do a little dance and wave to the kids. I guess they've just timed how long a person can physically stand being in this costume and then make sure that their performance time is less than that. But I can imagine the handlers rushing to get the performer out of this suit as soon as they are backstage!

The second performance was from a group of Brazilians with a mini-trampoline and no fear of heights. I find myself thinking that basketball could be a lot of fun if you have a 8' vertical leap:

Halftime is when good teams that are trailing make corrections and get back in the game. By this thinking, Lithuania must not be a good team because Spain comes out and blows Lithuania right off the court. They outscore Lithuania 36-16 for the period including three straight three pointers from Gasol (who is now 5 for 5 from beyond the 3-pt arc) and now lead 84-45.

With the final outcome assured, the Brazilian fans, who had been routing for Lithuania, begin looking for other things to entertain themselves. The obvious one is to start making waves - what they call Ola:

The leaders in one section will stand up and yell um, dois, três (1-2-3) and then everyone in the section will stand up and yell Ola and wave their hands over their heads. It doesn't take long before we've got waves going in both the upper and lower bowls. I must confess that I am having so much fun watching the Brazilians, I pay no attention to the rest of the game other than to see whether Spain will reach 100 points and increase their lead to 50 points. They manage to do both. The final score is Spain 109, Lithuania 59. Pau Gasol leads Spain with 23 points on 7 for 9 shooting. Mindaugas Kuzminskas leads Lithuania with 17.

This is the latest that we've been out for an event during this Olympics and while it might be nice to soak up a little more Olympic park atmosphere, we're more interested in beating the crowd to the buses so that we get back to the hotel at a reasonable time. At 9:30 pm, the Brazilians are only just getting warmed up. They'll probably still be in the park long after midnight so we have no problems getting on a bus or the Metro. In fact, we are back in Ipanema early enough that we have time to go visit our favorite gelato place for the 3rd time since we've been here. 

Steps for the day - 13,226

Rio 2016 - Day 7 (August 12)

Today (well about two months ago today!), we are on our way to our one premium Olympic event - Track & Field,  also known by its Olympic name: Athletics. This will be the third day in a row where we've taken the same route to a different venue: Metro from General Osório to Central then the Santa Cruz train to the De Dentro station and then a short walk to the stadium.

This is the first day of Athletics and we expected a big crowd; instead, this is what what we see:

We're not sure why - maybe it is the Brazilian aversion to mornings, the light rain that is falling, or the facts that this session has only one final: the women's 10 km and no Brazilians are expected to figure prominently in the results. Our seats are located on the end of the stadium away from the finish line for most of the events. But that's okay as there is plenty to see. We are just under the end of the roof and the breeze is toward us so we are getting a little damp. Most of the seats around us are empty as people move further back under the roof. 

At the far end of the stadium the session begins with qualifying for the men's discus. This is broken up into two groups A and B. Group A are the athletes with the longest throws in the current season and they go first. Here is Gerd Kanter from Estonia making a throw:

Each of these rather large humans (Gerd is 1.95 m[6'5"], 125 kg [276 lbs]) gets three tries to reach the qualifying distance of 65.5 m (214'11"). They throw from inside a huge cage. This is to protect the spectators in case someone lets go either too soon or too late, although this is much more of a risk during the hammer throw. It is really hard for us to follow who is throwing and what the results are because an official with a GPS-on-a-stick has to run out, find the place where the discus hits and record the distance. Usually the distance is displayed while someone else is throwing. But occasionally, one of the stadium scoreboards lists the current best throws. We notice Polish athlete Piotr Malachowski throws 65.89 m and Austrian Lukas Weisshiadinger throws 65.86 m, both on their second throws. At that point, they are done for the day because they've qualified for the finals. Everyone else stays for all three throws to try to qualify for one of the other 10 spots in the finals.

In the meantime, a bunch of women walk out onto the track to our right where high hurdles are set up:

Sean takes one look at Uzbekistan's Ekaterina Voronina and exclaims "she's got better abs than I have!". These very fit young women are competitors in the heptathlon and are here to compete in the first of seven events held over a two-day period: the 100 m high hurdles. They will also compete in the high jump later in this session. While these athletes are theoretically competing against each other, they are really competing against the clock (or ruler). The faster (or further) they go, the more points they get. Voronina finishes last in the first heat in a time of 15.21 seconds. This is good for 814 points. The top athletes in heptathlon want to get at least 1000 points per event so the first place finisher in this heat, Gyorgyi Zsivoczky-Farkas from Hungary, is quite happy with her time of 13.79 seconds good for 1008 points.

It is common at the Olympics to see some of the athletes wearing one or more pieces of kinesio tape used to support injuries or weak areas. Grit Sadeiko from Estonia comes out to warm up for the second heat with four pieces of kinesio tape on her lower back, one on her left leg and a larger wrap above her left knee. Uh oh, this looks like a train wreck about to happen! But it is understandable; the Olympics are only once every four years so even if you are banged up and might have skipped a lesser competition, the tendency is to tape yourself up and go out and try to compete. Two hurdles into her heat, Grit pulls up with what looks like a blown hamstring:

This is too bad. But it says something about the will of these athletes that they go out there and try to compete when their bodies are saying no way. Grit is only 27, so we hope that she will get another try in Tokyo in 2020. This would be her 4th Olympics!

The rest of the hurdles goes more or less as expected. Defending gold medalist Jessica Ennis-Hill from Great Britain sets the fastest time at 12.84 seconds good for 1149 points and a great start on her bid to repeat. Right behind her are Akela Jones from Barbados (13.00/1124 pts), Nadine Visser from the Netherlands (13.02/1121 pts) and Kendell Williams from the US (13.04/1118 pts). But there are 24 athletes with at least 1000 points so it will be some time before we figure out who the real contenders are.

While the hurdles are still going on, the competitors in the women's shot put come out to warm up. The A group is qualifying directly in front of us while the B group is off to our left. All of them will be trying to reach the automatic qualifying distance of 18.40 m (60'4"). Four women: Valerie Adams from New Zealand (the two-time defending gold medalist), Christina Schwanitz from Germany, Lijiao Gong from China and Anita Marton from Hungary qualify on their first throws, put their sweatsuits back on and sit down to watch the rest of the competition. We're concentrating on the two Americans. Here is Raven Saunders:

Raven is a "spinner". That is, she spins around several times before throwing in a way that is similar to the discus. This is a relatively new technique that is based on the idea that if you are spinning, you're less likely to go outside the ring on your throw. This doesn't help Raven on her first throw as she fouls anyway. But on her second try, she throws 18.83 m (61'9") to automatically qualify for the finals.

Next up is Michelle Carter:

Raven looks large, but she is "only" 1.66 m (5'5"), 108 kg (238 lbs). Michelle is truly a large woman: 1.76 m (5'9") 136 kg (300 lbs). She came by this size naturally as her father Michael (6'2"/285 lbs) won the silver medal in the shot put at the 1984 Summer Olympics in LA and then went on to play for the San Francisco 49ers for 9 years. Both father and daughter set national high school records in the shot so she's got a lot of genetics in her favor. In track lingo, Michelle is a "glider" meaning that instead of spinning, she will take a couple short steps directly across the ring and throw. And throw she does. After a disappointing first throw of 17.95 m (58'11"), she uncorks a beauty on her second try. Her throw of 19.01 m (62'4") easily qualifies for the finals. 

None of the other women reach the automatic qualifying distance, but the few Brazilians in the stands cheer loudly when it is announced that Geisa Arcanjo qualifies for the finals with her season's best first throw of 18.27 m (59'11").

With the Heptathlon 100 m hurdles out of the way, it is time from the preliminaries in the Men's 800 m. In this competition, the three fastest athletes from each of the 7 heats along with the 3 with the next fastest times will qualify for the semi-finals. There seems to be two types of runners in these races - those with enough endurance to maintain their pace for the entire race and the "kickers" who try to avoid using up their lower level of endurance long enough that they can kick into a much higher speed near the end of the race. This combination produces a number of strange races. In the first heat, Boris Berian of the US:

decides that the only way he is going to qualify is to go out hard and try to neutralize the kickers. He led his heat for perhaps 700 m before Ayanleh Souleiman from Djibouti and Amel Tuka from Bosnia blow past him. Boris hangs on for 3rd and qualifies for the semi-finals. The third heat features David Rudisha from Kenya:

Rudisha, the current world record holder and defending gold medalist, does not want to risk getting tripped up by the pack so he goes to the front and stays there the whole race. His wins his heat in a time of 1:45.09 and is a good 0.3 to 0.4 seconds faster than anyone else in all 7 heats despite looking like he was out for a morning stroll in the park.

Seven of the top 10 times were recorded by athletes in these two heats. With the top of the race out of the way, it was time to see who else would qualify. The luckiest guy in the entire competition had to be Girodano Benedetti from Italy:

In heat 5, Benedetti found himself in a race full of kickers. No one wanted to take the lead because it takes more energy to lead than to follow and kickers always tend to come from behind. So they snoozed through the first lap with everyone saying "you lead" "no, you lead". Benedetti reluctantly took the lead. He was eventually passed by two other runners, but did manage to finish 3rd to qualify for the semi-finals. This is despite the fact that his time of 1:49:40 was slower than all but 12 of the finishers. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good!

Once the 800 m was finished, it was time to start the high jump portion of the heptathlon. This takes place at the other end of the stadium and it is really hard to see what was going on unless I am looking through the viewfinder of my camera with the 400 mm lens. Each athlete chooses their opening height. This is a sort of strategy because each athlete can realistically make perhaps 6 or 7 successful jumps before they run out of energy so based on what height they think that they should be able to jump, they start at some lower distance to give themselves enough time to warm up, but not so much lower that they'll have no energy left by the time they get to their target height. The result is that you get huge differences in starting heights. Evelis Aguilar from Colombia and Sofia Yfantidou from Greece start at 1.56 m (5'1") while Nafissatou Thiam from Belgium doesn't start until 1.83 m (6'0").

The women get part way through the high jump and then have to stop for the beginning of the premier event of the session: the women's 10 km. I've run dozens of 10 km races so I am pretty sure that today's conditions of cool with light drizzle are almost perfect conditions. Sure enough, a lead group consisting of Alice Nawowuna from Kenya, Almaz Ayana from Ethiopia, Yasmin Can from Turkey (but who was born in Kenya), Vivian Cheruiyot from Kenya, Betsy Saina from Kenya, Gelete Burka from Ethiopia, Tirunesh Dibaba from Ethiopia and...Molly Huddle from the US took off like they were shot out of a gun:

It was incredible to see how fast they opened up time on a very large chase pack:

By 4 km, the lead group was already ahead by about half a lap! At the other end of the spectrum is Marisol Romero from Mexico:

Marisol is 33 years old and has a personal best of 31:46:43, but she is clearly not in that kind of shape right now. She runs basically alone for the first 7 laps until the East African (+1) freight train blows past to lap her.

We find ourselves rooting for Huddle to hang onto the East Africans for as long as she can and for Marisol to catch at least one person. Meanwhile Nawowona continues her insane pace. I know that the Ethiopians Ayana and Dibaba both have much faster 5 km times so maybe Nawowona is just trying to take the strength out of their kicks. One thing is for sure: the pace is absolutely shredding both the lead pack and the chasers into small groups spread out over the entire track. It is really hard to follow who is winning, but somewhere just after 5 km, Ayana from Ethiopia moves into the lead followed by Cheruiyot, Dibaba and Nawowuna. Huddle has fallen off the pace, but she has also picked off Burka to move into 7th place. Romero has now been passed a second time and has moved up one place when Ekaterina Tunguskova from Uzbekistan fell and could not continue.

By 8 km, it was clear that if Ayana:

finishes the race, she will win. It is only by how much. Around the same time, Huddle moved passed Can into 6th place and Romero got lapped a third time. The crowd was screaming at this point because Ayana is well under the pace of Wang Junxia's 23 year old world record. 

As she crossed the finish line, the scoreboard shows the time 29:17:45 and the words that everyone wanted to see WORLD RECORD! Ayana has lowered the world record by nearly 15 seconds. This is amazing because previously, no woman has come within 22 seconds of Wang's record during those 23 years. It should also be noted that Wang when she retired confessed that she was taking part in a state organized doping program at the time she set the record. This is the real downside in current professional sports - when an unbelievable performance is delivered, the first question is "Is she clean?" This is a real issue for Ayana because the Ethiopian doping control program has a 0 rating (on a 10 scale) from the World Anti-doping Agency. Second place goes to Vivian Cheruiyot from Kenya and third place goes to Tirunesh Dibaba from Ethiopia.

But whatever happens to Ayana and her record, I am thrilled with the results. You'll recall in an earlier blog that I said that what makes me come to the Olympics is the chance to see someone perform so well that they are shocked at what they've done. Well, this race is a bonanza in that regard. The first 13 finishers and 18 overall set personal bests. 8 athletes set national records. That includes Molly Huddle, who finished 6th in a time of 30:13:17, a time that sets a personal best, a national best and a North American best!

As for Marisol Romero, she picked up one more place when Juliet Chekwel from Uganda dropped out in the last km to finish 35th in a time of 35:33:03. While that was well off her best time and over 6 minutes behind Ayana, I'd like to point out that her time is nearly 7 minutes faster than my best time.

Although the crowd took a long time to pay any attention what with Ayana doing her victory lap with her country-woman Dibaba, the women's heptathlon resumed right after the end of the 10 km race. Here is a picture of Brianne Theisen-Eaton from Canada:

What is interesting about this picture is the guy in the black shirt and red hat in the upper middle of the picture. That's world record holder and defending gold medalist Ashton Eaton from the United States. He's also Brianne's  husband. Ashton is thrilled that Brianne just set a season's best mark of 1.86 m (6'1") good for 1054 points. This moves her into 5th place with 2151 pts so far.

But this event really evolves into a two woman match between Katrina Johnson-Thompson from Great Britain and Nafissatou Thiam from Belgium. Katrina started at 1.80 m, made that, passed at 1.83 m then made four consecutive jumps at 1.86 m, 1.89 m, 1.92 m and 1.95 m (6'5") before missing her first try at 1.98 m. Her jump of 1.95 m set an Olympic record for the high jump in the heptathlon. Thiam, whose father is from Senegal, started at 1.83 m, and made four successful jumps before missing her first two tries at 1.95 m. But she comes through and makes her last attempt at 1.95 m:

to pull into 2nd place behind Johnson-Thompson on the basis of fewer misses. Johnson-Thompson misses on her first try at what would be a world record for the heptathlon high jump of 1.98 m (6'6"). Thiam stepped up to the line and cleared the height to set a 2nd world record for the session! Johnson-Thompson then also cleared 1.98 m on her second try to tie the record. But the finish is a little anti-climactic when but both athletes fail on their three attempts at 2.01 m. This leaves them tied with 1211 pts and keeps Johnson-Thompson narrowly in 1st place with 2264 pts to 2252 pts for Thiam.

Our final event for the day is kind of unusual. It appears that too many women qualified for the 100 m so the organizers need three heats to reduce the number of women who will compete in the standard qualifying heats. As a result, a number of women from countries that would normally never be in the spotlight get to show what they can do. Here is the start of heat 1:

It is not often when the top four finishers in a heat are from Suriname, Cook Islands, Oman and Cape Verde! Charlotte Winfield from Malta has the fastest time in 11.86 seconds. The other seven qualifiers were Cecile Bouele from Congo, Sunayna Wahi from Suriname, Husniah Zulkifli from Malaysia, Hafsatu Kamara from Sierra Leone, Patricia Taea from Cook Islands, Mazoon Al-Alawi from Oman and Sisila Seavula from Fiji. I would also be remiss if I don't report that although they didn't qualify for the first round, Lidiane Lopes from Cape Verde, Kamia Yousufi from Afghanistan (running in the track equivalent of a burka) and Kariman Abuljadayel from Saudi Arabia all set national records!

There are a group of spectators that come to each Olympics and only watch athletics. After today's session, I can certainly see the attraction! On our way out of the stadium, we see Marisol Romero stretching out her legs against a security fence. I want to walk up and tell her that I appreciated how she kept battling despite not having a great day and being passed over and over, but do not want to intrude on her privacy.

It is only early afternoon, so neither the train nor the Metro are very crowded and we get back to our hotel around 3 pm. I work on pins for a couple hours while Beth and Sean watch the Olympic coverage. We're a little tired today so we decide to go back to the Mexican place for dinner, get a quick meal and go to bed early.

Steps for the day - 7,836