Wow! This has been such a truly awesome week. When we decided and booked the Olympics I thought it would be a great experience. But it has gone so far above and beyond what I was expecting and it has been just the sort of excitement I love! There have been the sporting moments - whether that was seeing a Brit win gold, or watching a live sport I had no idea of the rules of. There were the celeb spots which I am always over excited by. Then there were the smaller and more general moments that I have tried to keep a list of for the memory bank...
I love how with the Olympics you can get really into a sport and be really tense over it when you knew nothing about it five minutes before. We were having dinner at a pizza and pasta buffet restaurant one night where there was a TV showing the weightlifting. I found myself gasping at the Iranian's 3rd attempt failure on his first clean and jerk weight despite getting a world record in the snatch?!?! It was tough to watch but we were happy that Lasha from Georgia went on to win...
And can anyone explain about the Modern Pentathlon Fencing bungee run rope thing that the competitors seem to be attached to? I'm perplexed but loving the insight into a new world. I've been blessed to have that pleasantly perplexed feeling a lot this year 😀
I love the way you see different areas of the world nations dominating in different sports. A new nation of prowess for me was Hungary and countries towards the eastern half of Europe being highly represented in the canoe sprint.
I was also interested to discover, not until I was actually there in the stand, just what different events constituted Canoe Sprint. We saw doubles canoe where the athletes sort of kneel up with a one ended paddle on one side of the boat. Then there was individual kayaking and four to a kayak with distances 200m, 500m and 1000m. And I was pleased to understand now why basketball always seems so fast paced and end to end. I have never known there was a 24 (or is it 25) second countdown once a team has the ball and they have to shoot within that time or forfeit the ball. There is a clock above each basket that is counting down.
I loved the general buzz and feeling that there was of people having a good time. Everyone seemed excited and happy. Even when people were tired on the buses and trains, there were still smiles. We had a few chats to strangers on various transports, especially when we had our flags on and the definite impression was that people were having a great time. I found I had little time to think about non-Olympic things as my mind was just full of the excitement. One new friend asked how I was feeling about going back to the UK; it took me a while to get out my standard answer i'd been giving for the last few weeks, as I'd just not thought about it since being at the Olympics. And our French housemates asked about Brexit - it's been a long time since I've thought of that! Happy travel times!
I particularly enjoyed walking around the Olympic park in Barra. That's where most of the new venues were together, including swimming, velodrome, tennis, gymnastics, handball, basketball and others. I liked being part of the crowds surging through and heading to an event. It made me think of Disney a bit - walking long distances in excited crowds and also not eating very regularly!
Another thing I enjoyed was spotting the Games Maker similarities to London 2012. Their uniforms were very similar, just a different colour and their trousers could zip off into shorts. When someone scanned our tickets, I liked wondering if they were enjoying that job as much as I did at the Excel. I don't think there were as many volunteers as at London which had its good and bad points. In Rio we benefitted from the more relaxed style in that there wasn't anyone showing you to your seats so we 'upgraded' ourselves to better seats - particularly for Mo's 5000m final where arriving early meant we got to take our pick of the expensive seats on the finish straight instead of being right at the top. Although we did feel there was something not quite right about games makers taking photos of themselves on the 100m straight while spectators in stand!
I guess a difference in experience being at an 'away' games, is that we were in the monitory by being team GB supporters. Hence I guess the fact that we were interviewed by the same radio journalist at two different events, and that people wanted to take photos of us with our Union flags. My favourite surreal photo moment was the guy who gave his dog to us and took a photo of us with it!!
My final random moment that I have not managed to fit in anywhere else, was when we happened to watch Bolt win the 200m final on tv in a restaurant on Copacabana beach. I smiled at the way people spontaneously applauded when he won. It's quite something the way he has such universal appeal and everyone seems to be wanting him to do well.
I can't really believe that it's been only a week but it has been a wondrous week to finish our travels on. There seemed such negative press beforehand but we haven't experienced any of it. We always felt safe, the transport was always ready and waiting for us, and I wasn't bitten once by anything my whole time in South America! I really have loved it! Well done Rio and Team GB - you did us proud!
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