Our first day at the Olympics has us off to see women's team handball in the Future Arena in the Barra de Tijuca Olympic Park. This is the Olympic park that desperately needed the Metro 4 line to open in order to get spectators from the downtown area to this arena in the affluent SW suburbs. The game starts at 9:30 am so we are awake, showered, dressed and ready to eat breakfast when the dining area opens at 6 am. We are greeted by a elderly black man who is apparently in charge of the breakfast area. He says "Bom Dia" (sounds to me like bom geeah). When we look at him quizzically, he smiles and says "good morning, bom dia".
There is a unsweetened yogurt, juice, lots of fruit (mangoes, bananas, pineapple, guava, melon) and breads as well as what looks like some sort of pancake and quite thick slabs of bacon. We try to take anything that we can't get at home. It's all good, but it is time to go.
Rather than going to the Metro station where we bought the 7 day passes, we walk in the opposite direction toward what Beth thinks will be slightly closer 2nd stop on the Metro 4 line. She is right! During the Olympics, only people with event tickets and Metro passes are allowed to ride so we are greeted at the entrance to the station by two Olympic volunteers and two security people. We show our tickets and then let us in. We really like the design of the area where you swipe your cards:
There are a couple families on the train when we get on the train. The young kids all look at me covered with Olympic pins. This is the signal I'm waiting for and get a bunch of big smiles when I hand them a pin. Their parents all speak at least some English and they want to know about where we're from and about other Olympics.
At the end of the Metro 4 line, we walk to one end of the station, swipe our cards and almost immediately are loaded onto a waiting bus to take us to the Olympic Bus Station outside the Olympic park. I'm standing next to a very friendly guy who turns out to be an actor that worked for a number of years in New York City, but had trouble getting a lot of work because he speaks English with a heavy accent. He returned to Brazil a couple of years ago and is very happy. He wants to tell us all about Brazil - that it would be the same size as the US if we left out Alaska, that it has a very diverse population, that the housing in Barra de Tijuca is more expensive than in New York City. He says that although he is an actor, for the Olympics, he's working as a cook because, as he says, "they pay very, very well".
After about a 20 minute drive, the bus drops us at the Olympic Bus Station. One of our first criteria for whether an Olympics will be a success is transportation so this trip was one strong vote in Rio's favor. In front of us, we see what looks like a very temporary overhead walkway that passes over the highway next door and down to the Olympic park. When we finally get to the queues for security, we found that the Brazilians have an unusual way of doing them. Instead of a series of perhaps 3 or 4 very long parallel walkways with 180 degree turns at each end, the Brazilians have filled the same space with a whole bunch of very short perpendicular segments. Walking through them feels a lot like skiing - one two three steps, turn, one two three steps, turn... The only problem is that the feet holding up the railings stick far enough into the very narrow rows that the chance of tripping is high. Sure enough, a couple minutes later, a woman in front of us trips and falls. She's banged up, but seems to be okay. I am very careful with where I put my feet after that.
Security is relatively uneventful. It takes us a little bit of time to figure out which is the bag line because all of the Olympic volunteers are giving directions in Portuguese, but we finally make it into the right line. They hardly give my vest and hat a second thought as we pass through. Another short walk to where we show the volunteers our event tickets and we are into the Olympic Park. Both Beijing and London had similar parks with a lot of nearby arenas. I think that this area was originally built to be a large convention center similar to Moscone Center in San Francisco. So these venues are permanent. However, they've added a bunch more, many of which look like they will be taken down right after the Paralympics ends.
It takes us about 15 minutes to walk over to the Future arena near the far side of the Park. We have A level seats for this one and after getting wrong directions from several Olympic volunteers (no worries - it is their first day too!), we find our seats in the 3rd row at the equivalent of the 25 yard line.
Today we are going to see two matches: Brazil versus Norway and Netherlands versus France in women's team handball. For those of you that are new to this sport (that includes nearly everyone in the US!), handball is played on a slightly longer than basketball court length court. At each end are what looks like small soccer goals. The game is played with what looks like a small soccer ball. Players can dribble the ball or can run up to 3 steps after a dribble, but they can only stand still for 3 seconds before passing or dribbling. Surrounding each net is a 6 meter diameter circle. Players are trying to throw the ball into the net without stepping into the 6 meter circle.
Sometimes, players will reach the 6 meter line without any one defending them and will launch themselves into the air before trying to throw the ball past the goal keeper like this:
But more often, there is a lot of defense to the shot:
Norway is in the red and Brazil is in the yellow. Both of these teams are recent world champions and the quality of play is very high. As you can see in this picture, the Brazilians are much bigger and they have decided to play a very physical style of play against the Norwegians. We come to appreciate the play of the Norwegian pivot, 33 year old Heidi Løke. First, we just like the name because Loki is the Scandinavian mythological trickster. But we also appreciate her work. The pivot plays at the top of the 6 meter circle, directly in front of the goal keeper. Her job is to create holes in the defense that the center can use to get off a shot or to be available to take a shot if the center drops of the ball during a drive to the net. She is also responsible for guarding the opposing pivot. Here is a picture of her on offense:
She spent nearly the first half with a tissue stuffed up her nose after getting an elbow to the face early in the game, but she hung in there and was very effective.
The game was tight throughout with the lead rarely being more than 1 or 2 goals. But in the end, the Brazilians pulled away to win 31-28. In the handshake line, a lot of the Brazilians hugged Heidi making me think that they all play professional team handball together in Europe.
The second match is much less exciting. The French team, which seems to have a big influx of transplanted African athletes were more talented than the Dutch, but the Dutch played tenacious defense and were carried for most of the match by the strong play of their goal keeper Tess Wester. Team handball is very popular in Europe so both of these teams have a bunch of fans in the stands. Here are the french fans:
And of course, the dutch fans are legendary for their love of sport and for having a great time wherever they go:
But despite their efforts on defense, the French are just too strong and end up winning 18-14.
It is now 1 pm and time to get something to eat. We head over to the food area and discover that the Olympic organizers, in their desire to speed up the food lines, have created a separate line where you pay for the food, get a voucher and then go to the food lines to pick up your purchases. Unfortunately, there are not enough payment lines so there are practically no people in the food lines and humongous lines to pay. We decide to head over to the Olympic superstore to pick up some Olympic swag and hope that the lines will be better latter.
Of course, the superstore also has a huge line, but at least it seems to be moving pretty fast and after about 15 minutes, we make it into the store. Sean, who was the only one of us not wearing a hat in the midday sun, decides to get a mascot hat. The Rio 2016 mascot is named Vinicius and is supposed to be a blend of Brazilian animals. Sean likes the hat because it has ears on it and a long green tail. Beth and I get t-shirts with the sports pictograms and I head over to the pin area and showing great restraint, only buy about 12.
We head back outside and discover that the lines are still huge, but we are pretty hungry and thirsty by this time in the hot sun (about 88 degrees F) so we go through the lines and get a light meal. Unlike most of the previous Olympics, the food court does not appear to have much of anything that looks like Brazilian cuisine. There are hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, pizza and a couple forms of pasta. Disappointing!
We think about exploring the rest of the Park (there are a number of Olympic sponsor display areas in addition to the other arenas), but we are pretty cooked and decide to head for the hotel. The trip back is almost as smooth as the ride to the Park. I manage to give away a bunch more pins on the bus and train. We're still a little jet lagged so we take an afternoon nap before heading out for dinner.
Since we ate lunch late, we're not very hungry. We finally happen upon a middle eastern themed place selling falafel and shwarma wraps. Tasty and not too heavy. On our way back to the hotel, we discover a gelato place that was excellent. We'll be back here again before our time in Rio ends.
Feeling happy with our first day, we go back to our room to watch the evening's Olympic events. Unfortunately, the TV only shows low resolution video so it is a lot like watching circa 1980 TV. But there are something like 20 channels of coverage so there is no problem finding something that we want to watch. It is a little early to tell, but it appears that the Brazilians do not use NBC's formula of covering only the sports that the home team is good at. They also show the event all the way through rather than showing only the top 3-4 performances.
Tomorrow, we're off to table tennis. I apologize for the time that it is taking to get these blogs out, but our schedule has been pretty loaded so far. I hope to do better during the next week. In the meantime, stay tuned!
Steps for the day - 11,591
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