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:
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:
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
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
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